3 ways a Russia-China axis is seeking to undermine the West

Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin

As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to host the annual G20 summit next month, it's no secret that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be the top guest.

Come September 4, leaders of the world's biggest economies will gather in Hangzhou, China, to discuss business, trade, and a range of foreign-policy challenges.

"Russia and China now cooperate and coordinate to an unprecedented degree — politically, militarily, economically — and their cooperation carries anti-American and anti-Western ramifications," authors Douglas Schoen and Melik Kaylan wrote in "The Russia-China Axis."

"In short, there is a new Cold War in progress, with our old adversaries back in the game, more powerful than they have been for decades, and with America more confused and tentative than it has been since the Carter years."

Here's a look at a few ways the Russia-China axis operates against American and Western interests.

1. Supporting rogue regimes economically and militarily

China and Russia continue to provide military and economic aid to rogue regimes like North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

"China has kept the deranged North Korean regime afloat for years with economic aid and enabled Pyongyang's nuclear pursuits by its refusal to enforce UN sanctions," authors Douglas Schoen and Melik Kaylan wrote in "The Russia-China Axis."

As Pyongyang's closest ally, China is opposed to the bilateral decision between the US and South Korea to deploy America's most advanced missile-defense system to the Korean Peninsula.

KCNA/via Reuters

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery is slated to be operational in South Korea by the end of 2017 in order to counter increasingly aggressive threats from the North.

Pressure to deploy THAAD was spurred after Pyongyang tested its fourth nuclear bomb on January 6 and then launched a long-range rocket on February 7.

China argues that since Washington agreed to equip Seoul with the unique missile-defense system, the North's missile tests have expanded and are poised to increase.

So far this year, the Hermit Kingdom has conducted a little more than 13 rounds of ballistic-missile tests and has fired 29 various rockets, according to South Korea's UN ambassador.

Chinese Ambassador Qiu Guohong warned that deploying THAAD would irreparably damage relations between the countries, The Chosunilbo reported.

THAAD deployment, Qiu said, "would break the strategic balance in the region and create a vicious cycle of Cold War-style confrontations and an arms race, which could escalate tensions."

KCNA/via Reuters

During a discussion at the Brookings Institution on identifying emerging security threats, CIA Director John Brennan said that the deployment of THAAD to the region was one of the US's "obligations" in the region.

"Clearly Kim Jong Un continues to go down a road that is exceptionally irresponsible as far as regional and global security, with his development of nuclear weapons as well as ballistic missiles," Brennan told Business Insider in a question-and-answer session.

KCNA/via Reuters

"We have certain obligations to our partners and the region so that the appropriate steps are taken to reassure our friends, partners, and allies of US commitment to the security of that area."

During a Hudson Institute discussion on US missile-technology preeminence, US Army Gen. Charles Jacoby, former commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), was in agreement and stressed the importance of deploying THAAD, despite it upsetting near peers like Russia and China.

"Certainly the Russians and the Chinese and other stakeholders understand that in South Korea besides being a wonderful ally, significant economic engine for growth throughout the world, that there are tens of thousands of American citizens living there, there is still US forces there, they are playing a defense role and they are at risk everyday to a host of threats that now include the potential for ballistic-missile-carried weapons of mass destruction," Gen. Jacoby said.

"We cannot not act."

KCNA/via Reuters

Meanwhile, the rogue regime continues to conduct defiant ballistic-missile tests.

The most recent test occurred at the end of August, when the North fired what was believed to be a KN-11 missile from a submarine.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has acted as Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's biggest ally by "showering his regime with weapons systems, bases, and funding," Kaylan and Schoen wrote.

"Since then the examples have mounted to include joint support for Assad who deliberately fostered ISIS to squeeze the moderate opposition in Syria and Russia went on to bomb them while virtually ignoring ISIS," Kaylan told Business Insider.

AP

According to a new report from a UN-sanctioned human-rights group, Russian airstrikes have killed more Syrian civilians than ISIS.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) report finds that over a span of 305 days, beginning September 30, 2015, and lasting until July 31, 2016, Russia's strikes in Syria have "killed no less than 2,704 civilians including 746 children and 514 women."

By contrast, since ISIS emerged on April 9, 2013, the extremist terror group is responsible for the deaths of "no less than 2,686 civilians including 368 children."

AP

Further, the relationship Russia and China foster with Iran is "pivotal."

"Iran acts as a bottle-neck for all Central Asian raw materials reaching the outer world. If Tehran plays along with Moscow and Beijing, it stands to share in the spoils of dominating both regions," Kaylan told Business Insider.

2. Massive military buildups

Both Russia and China have increased their defense-spending budgets in order to upgrade and acquire military hardware.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated the world's largest military, coupled with roughly $356 billion in military-spending power. 

Russia’s defense budget will be cut by 5% in 2016, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Tatiana Shevtsova said, according to the RIA news agency.

APAdding to this, they often collaborate and supply each other.

"The coordinated military buildup serves a global strategy to overstretch Western resources worldwide," Kaylan told Business Insider. "Witness Chinese submarine proliferation in the South China Sea and Moscow's supply of defensive missiles around Iranian nuclear plants."