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Is a 'new axis' emerging?

2024-10-26 16:03:09Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA SIMONE MCCARTHY
Is a 'new axis' emerging?
Xi and Putin

Simone McCarthy - CNN

Thousands of North Korean troops, which US intelligence says arrived in Russia for training this month, have sparked concern that they will be deployed to bolster Moscow's battlefront in Ukraine.

They have also raised the alarm in the US and its allies that increased coordination among anti-Western countries is creating a much wider and more pressing security threat.

Hundreds of Iranian drones have also been part of Moscow's attack on Ukraine, and last month the US said Tehran had also sent short-range ballistic missiles to the warring country.

Meanwhile, China has been accused of powering the Russian war machine with significant amounts of "dual-use" goods such as microelectronics and machine tools, which can be used to make weapons.

Last week, the US penalized two Chinese firms for the first time for supplying complete weapons systems. All three countries have denied providing such support.

Noting the evolving cooperation, a congressionally-backed group that assesses US defense strategy this summer called Russia, China, Iran and North Korea an "axis of growing malign partnerships."

The fear is that a shared hostility to the US is increasingly pushing these countries to work together, amplifying the threat that each of them alone poses to Washington or its allies, not just in one region, but perhaps in many parts of the world.

"If (North Korea) is a co-belligerent, their intention is to participate in this war on behalf of Russia, this is a very, very serious matter and it will have impacts not only in Europe," said the Secretary of the US Defence, Lloyd Austin.

'Driven by survival strategy'

There is a perception that a new, dangerous alignment is on the rise, with Putin's war as its catalyst.

Such an alignment would bring together two long-time nuclear-armed powers, a state believed to have amassed a host of illicit nuclear warheads in North Korea and Iran, which the US says is likely to assemble a such weapons within weeks.

North Korea's military partnership with Russia now links the bitter and heated conflict in Europe to a particularly tense period on the Korean Peninsula, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has stepped up his threats against the South, with which he remains technically at war.

Following reports that North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia, South Korea said it may consider supplying weapons to Ukraine, where the US ally has yet to directly provide arms.

The importance of the drone war in Ukraine has caused Russia to look to Iran, deepening a security rift dating back to 2015 and the war in Syria, when both supported the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

And for Tehran, weighed down by heavy Western sanctions and embroiled in the widening Middle East conflict with US-backed Israel, Russia's arms supply is thought to boost its defense sector, while its ties to Beijing and Moscow offer him diplomatic cover.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has declared a "borderless" partnership with Putin, has claimed neutrality in the conflict and largely barred Chinese firms from providing direct lethal aid.

However, it has filled wide gaps in Russian demand for other goods, including products considered by the US and others to be dual-use, and has benefited from Russia's discounted energy.

Beijing defends its "normal trade" with Russia. China has also continued to expand joint military exercises and diplomatic ties with a country it sees as a key partner in pushing back against the West in international forums.

But while these four countries have their own motives for cooperating with each other individually, especially in the context of Russia's war, there are clear limits to any broader coordination, mutual trust, and even interest in working together. , at least for now, observers say.

"This is a set of bilateral relations driven by each country's survival strategy, or what's on the menu for geopolitics and what's the crisis of the day or the decade they're facing," said Alex Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Center Russia" in Berlin.

"These are authoritarian regimes and they all see the US as a common adversary. That's the motive that holds them together, but if we can talk about a degree of coordination (among the four) … I think we're a long way from that,” he said.

This raises the urgent question of whether these current alignments can last beyond the war in Ukraine and evolve into direct coordination between the four nations.

The China Factor

A key factor in how any further escalation plays out is China, observers say, by far the most powerful player in the group, the main trading partner for Russia, North Korea and Iran, and the nation seen by the US as its main adversary. .

As its divisions with Washington have deepened, Beijing has stepped up efforts to challenge US global leadership and shape an international order in one that favors China and other autocracies.

Russia's role in that effort was on display this week in its southwestern city of Kazan, where Xi and Putin hailed their commitment to building a "fairer" world.

Both have sided with Tehran in the Middle East conflict, where its proxies are fighting Israel. China, Russia and Iran have also held four joint naval exercises since 2019, and China is by far Iran's largest energy buyer.

At the same time, heavily sanctioned Iran is no longer "the preferred state for China's Middle East policy" as Beijing builds relations with the wealthier Gulf states, according to Jean-Loup Samaan, a senior researcher at the Institute of Middle East National University of Singapore.

Beijing also carefully manages its relationship with North Korea, which is almost entirely dependent economically and diplomatically on China. Chinese leaders are widely seen as wary of the growing Kim-Putin rapprochement and the potential for an empowered North Korea to cause trouble and draw more US focus to the region.

When asked about the North Korean troop movement in Russia at a regular press conference on Thursday, China's foreign ministry said it had "no information on that".

As it practices its aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and toward Taiwan, the island's democratic Beijing claims, China may not want to appear to lean too far into these partnerships and hinder efforts to portray itself as a responsible global leader.

"Russia, North Korea, Iran are the kind of grouping that China least wants to be openly associated with," said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"A real danger"

Seen by the West, however, China's refusal to cut economic lines to North Korea in defiance of UN sanctions and a Russia that has threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine is often seen as a tacit endorsement of these regimes.

In July, the Commission on National Defense Strategy said China and Russia's partnership had "deepened and broadened" to include a military and economic partnership with Iran and North Korea.

"This new alignment of nations opposed to US interests creates a real, if not likely, risk that conflict anywhere could turn into a multi-theater or global war," he said.

China has repeatedly insisted that its relationship with Russia is one of "non-alliance, non-confrontation and non-targeting of any third party".

NATO in recent years has also moved to improve relations with US allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific, with a meeting of defense ministers last week joined for the first time by Australia, Japan, Zealand and New and South Korea.

The current dynamic also raises the risk that future conflicts, including one where China is at the center rather than Russia, will see coordination among the four, some analysts say.

For example, in a potential conflict in the South China Sea or over Taiwan, there is debate over whether Beijing would want to see North Korea or Russia play a role in creating a distraction in North Asia.

But some experts also caution against seeing this "pivot" or such a future as a foregone conclusion, as these relationships remain opportunistic, rather than based on deep ideological alignment or trust.


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