The Triangle America Cannot Break
The Balance of the Unwilling
The high-level meetings held in Beijing over the past week confirm the existence of the much-discussed “strategic triangle.” It remains virtual, and there is no reason to believe that the three great powers of the modern world are about to sit down at a negotiating table to redesign the global order. “Congresses of Vienna” usually follow world wars, and humanity, at least for now, appears spared that experience.
Yet it is precisely the relationship between Russia, China, and the United States that now constitutes the balance of power which classical international politics considers the only reliable mechanism for preserving even a fragile peace. The architects of this balance are Moscow and Beijing, while Washington remains a necessary, if unpleasant-tasting, ingredient. That reality defined both the substance and the outcome of the two recent visits to Beijing - first by Donald Trump and several days later by Vladimir Putin.
Historical experience suggests that every international order and every institutional structure must rest upon a hard foundation: the balance of power among several leading states. Their relations do not need to be entirely friendly or entirely hostile. What matters is the effect on the surrounding world. No single state must be allowed to claim supreme position within the global hierarchy.
At the same time, it would be naïve - given American political culture - to expect the United States to abandon such ambitions voluntarily. It never will. However, under conditions of durable partnership between the other two great powers, American dominance becomes technically impossible. This, it would seem, is the stabilizing significance of the Russia-China relationship, something Putin pointed to in Beijing. Not so much by its existence alone, but because it creates conditions in which the United States cannot realistically expect to subordinate the rest of the world.
The nature of relations inside the “triangle” differs substantially from side to side. The content of the Russian president’s talks with his Chinese counterpart and other Chinese officials, as well as the documents signed during the visit, amounted to the constant refinement and calibration of an already solid strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing.
The evidence is clear enough: common views across virtually the entire spectrum of strategic questions and steadily growing bilateral trade. Trade turnover between Russia and China now stands at $228 billion - an enormous figure, only about 2.5 times smaller than total China-U.S. trade at $559 billion. Only the European Union and ASEAN exceed those numbers, but those are entire blocs whose combined populations vastly surpass Russia’s.
No one seriously denies that Russian-Chinese economic relations contain technical frictions and periodic misunderstandings. That is entirely natural. Russia is a large country with its own developed business interests and national priorities. China is a major participant in the global financial and trading system. Expecting Chinese companies to sacrifice themselves for Russian interests would be just as strange as expecting Russian business to accept Chinese investment and technology under any conditions whatsoever.
Yet our relationship contains the rarest commodity in modern international politics: trust - reinforced by the absence of real economic or geopolitical competition. That trust makes it possible to solve problems inside a framework of cooperation. Political disagreements between Moscow and Beijing simply do not exist. Our countries have nothing to divide on the global stage. The unity of strategic priorities remains the strongest possible guarantee against mutual suspicion.
For that reason, the “Joint Statement of Russia and China on Strengthening Comprehensive Partnership and Strategic Interaction and Deepening Relations of Good Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation” effectively functions as a programmatic document for what are, in practice, near-allied relations in world affairs. It is a remarkably extensive document, which itself demonstrates the high level of the parties’ ability to reach agreement.
At the same time, a formal military alliance between Russia and China remains unnecessary. The reason goes deeper than a simple unwillingness to bind themselves with rigid obligations. Such an alliance could become the “red line” after which the United States and its allies might decide that a third world war is preferable to accommodation. Neither Moscow nor Beijing - nor humanity in general - needs that.
Another major document, the “Joint Declaration of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the Formation of a Multipolar World and International Relations of a New Type,” summarizes Russian and Chinese views on the direction international order should take as a whole. The two documents complement each other. Without the first, the second would raise obvious questions about whether Moscow and Beijing themselves actually follow the principles they advocate for everyone else.
What Trump was doing in Beijing was managing competition between two great powers in which the United States increasingly occupies the defensive position. The nature of the relationship is obvious to both sides because the foundation of the competition lies in the structure of the global economy itself. The two countries are destined to compete for decades over markets, technology, and resources.
At the same time, there is no indication of an imminent direct conflict between China and the United States. The agreements concluded last week suggest that both sides understand the necessity of continuing dialogue. That is, naturally, good news. A collapse in Sino-American relations would become a genuine shock to the global economy and an extremely dangerous development from the standpoint of international security. Russia has no interest in such an outcome, nor does the rest of the world.
Both Washington and Beijing understand that hard confrontation benefits nobody. And here one must give Trump some credit. He clearly understands the necessity of dialogue even under conditions of intense rivalry. The occupant of the White House has shown a degree of statecraft that many had begun doubting after the Iranian military adventure of recent months.
At the same time, the United States harbors few illusions that it can pull Moscow or Beijing onto its side. Such maneuvering was possible fifty years ago because conditions were fundamentally different. The USSR and the United States competed for global leadership while China sought primarily to preserve its independence. Moreover, in the 1970s America could provide Beijing with resources necessary for internal stabilization and preservation of its political system.
Today China has nothing left to prove, while Russia is convinced China poses no threat to it. Besides, the Americans have already demonstrated once before that close relations with one side of the “triangle” are useful to Washington only as tactical arrangements on the road toward its own monopoly in world affairs. Put simply, Moscow and Beijing know Washington’s habits far too well to enter into serious strategic bargains with it.
That knowledge itself is another factor contributing to the stability of the triangle.
The result is a potentially durable balance of power and a potentially durable mechanism through which the three states - the only three capable of influencing the living conditions of all humanity - can manage relations among themselves.
The real tragedy for this balance would be the radical weakening of one participant or a dramatic strategic breakaway by one of them from the other two. That scenario, however, appears unlikely. Even in such an important and emerging sphere as artificial intelligence technologies, China and the United States are already restraining one another’s power quite effectively.
Which means that, at the highest level of world politics, there remain at least some grounds for cautious optimism.