December 7, 2024: To keep their economy going in spite of the economic sanctions, Russia is depending on China and India. These are its most loyal trading partners. These two nations assist Russia in exporting its oil despite the sanctions. They can also obtain some items Russian can no longer obtain from Western suppliers. Care must be taken because many of these components can easily be identified and traced back to the last legal purchaser. Ukraine has been diligent about collecting debris from Russians weapons that are not supposed to exist because of the ban on selling Russian essential components. This has led to the discovery and elimination of several smuggling operations. This often involves sanctioning Chinese or Indian businesses and some of their key personnel. China, more than India, has to be careful about this because Western sanctions on Chinese firms means China can no longer obtain key components from Western suppliers. This sort of thing didn’t start with Russian operations in Ukraine and has been encountered for decades as Iran copes with similar sanctions.

In 2023 China got credit for arranging a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran which involved these two long-time antagonists resuming diplomatic relations and, purportedly, halting military operations against each other. This was a major achievement for China. While this preliminary agreement makes for great headlines and indicates a decline in American influence in Saudi Arabia, it was not a done deal. The announcement was about intentions not actual accomplishments. Iran has a long history of violating agreements. Iran is still subject to economic sanctions by Western nations because of continued Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Armed like this, Iran could more easily intimidate neighboring countries and resume its historical role as the regional superpower.

Iran, China and Russia are now allies, diplomatically if not economically and militarily. Despite that, there are still suspicions. For example, Russia has sent troops stationed on border areas to Ukraine, but still keeps somewhat more than token forces on portions of its 4,200-kilometer Chinese border. There Russia faces, for the first time, a larger, better armed, trained and led Chinese army.

China has unresolved claims on most of the Russian Pacific coast territories. Russia also has a 17-kilometer border with North Korea and Russian troops are sometimes seen here as well. Since the Ukraine War began, fewer Russian troops have been seen on other foreign borders. That’s because the crisis in Ukraine demanded more troops to replace losses. The scale and scope of Russian army losses in Ukraine is unprecedented. While air forces and navy losses were relatively minor, the Strategic Rocket Forces or SRF and their thousands of nuclear warheads still have the same number of troops, so the Russian State is still secure. Neighboring China also has lots of nuclear weapons and keeps everyone guessing about who their missiles are aimed at.

Far more important is the Russian dependence on Chinese economic and military cooperation. China remains on good terms with Russia economically and militarily. China warned Russia to back off on nuclear threats over the Ukraine War and made it clear that China considered the Ukraine War a major mistake. Before 2022, Russia and China were seen as a powerful military and economic alliance. Now the Russian military is revealed to be much less capable than previously thought. Western sanctions have devastated the Russian economy and China will benefit from that at the expense of Russia. What happened to Russia in Ukraine also caused China to review its own military policies in the South China Sea, against Taiwan and, less obviously, the Russian Far East territories.

China insists it will continue to maintain pressure against its opponents in territorial disputes. Chief among this is the Chinese effort to gain control of Taiwan and Indian territory that China claims is illegally occupied by India. Then there is the most blatant claim of all ownership of the South China Sea. All these claims are vigorously opposed by growing coalitions of powerful countries.

China is most active on its border with India. China claims much territory that is now considered part of India. There have been several thousand armed and unarmed confrontations over the years as one side or the other accuses foreign troops of crossing the Line of Actual Control or LAC. The mutual troop withdrawal in Ladakh reduced tensions there but not along other LAC segments where there are still a lot of Chinese and Indian troops confronting each other.

China is slowly winning this border war because it uses largely non-violent tactics. China pushes its troops, often while unarmed, across the border and forces the Indians to try and stop them. This has led to casualties, but not from the use of military weapons. If the Indians fire on the unarmed Chinese troops, then India is the aggressor and China can shoot back. Often China does not and shames India into backing off. India realizes that China has a more powerful military and Indians do not feel confident about their ability to handle a large-scale battle on the border. India is still haunted by the last battle between Indian and Chinese forces. This took place back in 1962. In a month of fighting that began on 20 October 1962, India lost 7,000 troops. About 57 percent were prisoners and the rest dead or missing. There were 722 Chinese killed. China declared a ceasefire that India accepted. China actually advanced in two areas, a thousand kilometers apart and ended up taking 43,000 square kilometers of Indian territory.

The source of the 1962 war and current border disputes are a century old and heated up again when China resumed control over Tibet in the 1950s. From the end of the Chinese empire in 1912 until 1949, Tibet was independent. But then the communists took over China in 1949 and sought to reassert control over their lost province of Tibet. This began slowly, but once all of Tibet was under Chinese control in 1959, China had a border with India and there was immediately a disagreement about exactly where the border should be. That’s because, in 1914, the newly independent Tibet government worked out a border called the McMahon line with the British who then controlled India. China considers this border agreement illegal and wants 90,000 square kilometers back. India refused, especially since this would mean losing much of Arunachal Pradesh State in northeastern India and some bits elsewhere along the new northern border.

India feels more capable in opposing China because of growing Indian economic power. Indian GDP nearly doubled in the last decade; from $1.7 trillion to the current over $3.9 trillion now. This made India the fifth largest economy, surpassing Britain with $3.6 trillion and France with$3.2 trillion). The rest of the top five are the U.S with$29 trillion, China with $18 trillion, Germany with $4.7 trillion and Japan with $4 trillion. Chinese GDP growth is slowing although in the last decade it more than doubled from $6.1 trillion to $18 trillion. Over three decades of spectacular economic growth in China resulted in the Chinese GDP becoming over fourteen times larger than it was in 1989. In that same period the U.S. GDP doubled. After World War II India had a larger GDP than China and never felt the same urgency as China to modernize and expand its economy.

But India has not been as effective in keeping up with the Chinese military in terms of modernization. Indian threats to oppose Chinese military moves carry little weight with the Chinese or anyone else who analyzes the situation. Actions have consequences and, in this case, it means China can push India around on their mutual border. China intends to keep pushing until it regains its claimed lost territories. Currently the Indian GDP growth rate is increasing faster than China’s. The Indian defense budget does not benefit and military modernization plans remain on hold as the politicians try to figure out how to enrich themselves from all the additional money now available for spending. China notices this and is encouraged to push ill-equipped and supported Indian troops back from the border.

Meanwhile China has been blaming NATO for the war in Ukraine but realizes that the Ukrainians are not going to give up and are now talking to the Ukrainians about how China can help in bringing the war to an end. China has already told Russia that the war is a mistake and damages the Russian-Chinese alliance.

Russia has been unsuccessful at persuading China to provide military aid. Any country that does send military aid to Russia faces heavy economic sanctions. This would cause substantial economic and political problems for China. Russia argues that military aid from China would enable Russian forces to deal with another Ukrainian offensive. With Chinese military support Russia believes it could turn the Ukraine War into at least a stalemate. This would also demonstrate that Russia and China have a robust and effective alliance. China is not so sure. Russian forces have performed so poorly in Ukraine that Chinese military aid would have little impact.