If we think of the 1970s U.S.-China rapprochement as a video, it began to play in reverse in 1989 after the Chinese government’s massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. Remember the Square’s 33-foot-tall foam-and-papier-mache statue toppled by Chinese soldiers? And who can forget the so-called Tank Man who single-handedly stopped a roaring column of tanks? He vanished into thin air, and no one even knows his name.

In response, then-President George H. W. Bush imposed numerous sanctions on China, including an arms sales embargo, while pursuing collaborative relations with Taiwan, the primary irritant in Sino-American relations.

Sharing the goal of counterbalancing U.S. military and global economic power, in the 21st century, China and Russia have gradually strengthened economic and military links and bonds of amity. In July 2001, they signed a 20-year Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation (extended five additional years in 2021). In 2019 and 2020, they held joint air military exercises over the Pacific. Their alliance has been further cemented since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with China supporting the military aggression, helping spread Russian war propaganda, purchasing larger amounts of Russian oil and, according to U.S. sources, selling weapons to Moscow. Russia reciprocated when a few days after the invasion it declared Taiwan an “unfriendly nation.”

The same period has witnessed a concomitant deterioration of U.S.-Chinese relations over several matters, first and foremost Taiwan, but also balance of trade issues, economic espionage, cybersecurity, intellectual property rights and more recently, human and civil rights abuses in Tibet, the Xinjiang region and Hong Kong. Since 2018, when the Trump administration launched a trade war with China, hostilities escalated to unprecedented levels, increasing even further in 2021 over intensified threats to establish control over Taiwan by force.

To close the Sino-American relations video analogy, since the Tiananmen Square massacre that video has been played in reverse. What started in the 1970s and 1980s as a strategic alliance between the United States and China to counterbalance the Soviet Union was followed by two decades of deteriorating China-U.S. relations, coming full circle (only in reverse) with a robust Chinese-Russian alliance built to counterbalance the global power and influence of the United States.

Iran, the new axis’

junior partner

Iran and Russia have enjoyed decades of collaborative relations that include arms deals and Russian support for the development of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran joined the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization in 2007, where it holds the status of member observer state. Both countries have been military allies in the Syrian Civil War since 2011.

While there is progress in reaching a new nuclear deal with Iran, there are some areas of concern, foremost increased tensions and confrontations between the U.S. and Iranian-backed militias in Syria. Those militias targeted U.S. forces on Aug. 15, and the United States responded this week, launching air attacks against areas controlled by those militias.

The China-Russia-Iran Axis has coalesced further since 2019, when all three countries began yearly joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean. In March 2021, China and Iran signed a 25-year cooperation agreement whereby China agreed to invest 400 billion dollars in Iran in exchange for Iranian oil at guaranteed preferential prices. Later that year, Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Iran also supported China’s 2020 crackdowns in Hong Kong and has expanded collaborations with Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Iran, thus, has become the bridge that cements the alliance between the Chinese and Russian blocks. The main crack between those blocks pertains to hostile relations between India (Russian block) and Pakistan (Chinese block). China and India have border disputes of their own. Skirmishes in June 2020 in the disputed Galwan River valley killed 20 Indian and 40 Chinese soldiers.

Pro-Democracyblocks

in Europe and Asia

Widespread human rights abuses perpetrated by Chinese authorities in Hong Kong, genocidal actions against the Uyghur ethnic minority and escalation of belligerence against Taiwan on the one hand and Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine on the other have solidified two interlocked blocks of democratic nations under the leadership of the Biden administration, one in Europe, the other in the Indo-Pacific region.

This has occurred in a context of American global reengagement accompanied by a doubling in foreign U.S. favorability rates (12 democratic nation sample) from 34% when Donald Trump was president to 62% after President Joe Biden took office. According to Pew Research Center’s 2020 and 2021 Global Attitudes Surveys, trust in the U.S. president of turn skyrocketed more than 50 points in Sweden, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Canada, Spain, the U.K., Australia and South Korea.

This column is also the last chapter of my forthcoming book, “If History Is of Any Value: Politics, Culture, and the Unimaginable Events of 2019-2022” (forthcoming in November 2022).

To be continued.