Chussia: Revenge of the Revanchists

Peter Navarro

Security, Asia

China and Russia have a lot in common. 

What happens when you marry the world’s largest land mass, richest resource base and best air defense systems with the world’s most populous country, de facto factory floor and largest military force? The world may be about to find out the hardest of ways as China and Russia move ever closer to an axis of authoritarianism.

To assess the probability of such a Chussian wedding, consider this second question: Which characterization best captures China’s view of Russian President Vladimir Putin?

1) An evil imperialist villain engaged in military adventurism in Eastern Europe who must be contained.

2) A great national hero rightfully using Russia’s military might to reclaim lost territory stolen from it by a treacherous West.

In fact, the hero worship of “Putin the Great” on the streets of Beijing is fully consistent with a Chinese narrative in which the West, led by an imperialist America, has systematically carved up the world at the expense of victim nations like Russia and China. In this narrative, Russia lost territory that once comprised the Soviet Union only because Mikhail Gorbachev was “tricked” by Ronald Reagan. Now, it is only right and just that Putin use Russia’s growing military might to reclaim its lost territories.

Of course, the beauty of this narrative is that it gives China permission to engage in precisely the same kind of coercive expansionism as Russia. The clear analogy: Because China was carved up during its own Century of Humiliation (including and ironically by Czarist Russia), it is also just that, as China grows its military might, it now exercise its historical right to recover the lands that were unfairly taken from it.