China’s Agents of Chaos

At a joint press conference in June 2024, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg fretted over the strengthening ties between China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. They are hardly the only politicians to have done so. The informal pact between these four autocracies has become a major focus in Washington, described by both Democratic and Republican officials as a new “axis of evil.” These countries, analysts point out, coordinate military and diplomatic activity. They have similar rhetoric and common interests. And they seem to share one aim above all: weakening the United States.

Each of these countries, by itself, has formidable capabilities. But China is the bloc’s central player. It has the biggest population and economy, and it doles out the most aid. Beijing is North Korea’s primary trade ally and benefactor. It has helped Iran contend with international sanctions, signing a “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement with Tehran in 2021. And China has provided Russia with over $9 billion in dual-use items—goods with both commercial and military applications—since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. This support has kept Russia’s economy from collapsing, despite Western sanctions aimed at crippling the country’s war effort. (Chinese goods now make up 38 percent of all imports into Russia.)

But China doesn’t want to be seen as the leader of this group. It doesn’t even want to be viewed as a member. In April 2023, Chinese Premier Li Qiang claimed that “China-Russia relations adhere to the principles of nonalignment, nonconfrontation, and nontargeting of third parties.” In 2016, Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Fu Ying said that Beijing had “no interest” in forming “an anti-U.S. or anti-Western bloc of any kind.” The government has, accordingly, refrained from signing defense treaties with Iran and Russia. It sometimes works against Iranian, North Korean, and Russian positions in international conflicts.

There is a reason for this ambiguity. China wants to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant power, and although partnering with Iran, North Korea, and Russia helps Beijing in that effort, the trio can also undermine its aims. The three states weaken Washington by attracting its resources and distracting it from Beijing. But they have also greatly antagonized powerful neighbors—such as Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia—that China doesn’t want to alienate. As a result, Chinese officials must walk a fine line. Their relationship with the axis must be close enough that they can wield it, but not so close that they are blamed for its misbehavior.

Unfortunately, the United States is letting China have the best of both worlds. Washington has been too focused on figuring out whether these countries will form a traditional defense alliance to understand Beijing’s existing entrepreneurial approach to partnerships—or to see that it is very successful. Under the present arrangement, Iran, North Korea, and Russia all cause trouble for the West. Yet because those countries are not formal Chinese allies, Washington’s partners have not penalized China for their transgressions. In fact, if anything, the axis is splitting the U.S. alliance system. Many of the United States’ friends, preoccupied with their own regional troublemakers, have refused to join with Washington in its competition against Beijing.

China’s approach could be especially effective in the event of a war. If Beijing and Washington had to battle, the axis is now powerful enough and coordinated enough on military matters that it could fight together and defeat the United States. But because axis states are not a tightly coordinated bloc, they could just as easily launch separate conflicts that divide American resources, distract U.S. allies, and thus help Beijing prevail.

Washington must therefore change course. Rather than trying to guess how close these countries are to each other or working to pull them apart, the U.S. government must start treating them as the autocratic bloc they are. It must encourage its allies around the globe to do the same. And it needs to treat China as the master of the axis—whether or not that is the reality of the situation.

HALF IN, HALF OUT

In 1950, at the onset of the Cold War, the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet Communist Party formalized a 30-year Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance. The agreement, forged in the aftermath of the Communists’ victory over the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, was framed by both sides as the natural coming together of two revolutionary socialist states. As such, it called on Beijing and Moscow to defend and consult each other “regarding all important international questions affecting the common interests of the Soviet Union and China.”

In practice, however, the Chinese-­Soviet relationship quickly became complicated. The countries did often collaborate, most notably by supporting North Korean founder Kim Il Sung in his war against South Korea. But they also clashed over who would lead the communist bloc. Beijing and Moscow, for example, vied to arm the North Vietnamese. China resisted Soviet efforts to forge a détente with the United States.

Today, China’s relationship with U.S. antagonists is again half in, half out. There is, on the one hand, plenty of cooperation. In 2021, Beijing renewed the Chinese–North Korean mutual defense treaty, and as of 2023, China purchases 90 percent of Iran’s oil. China, Iran, and Russia conduct regular joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman. And in 2018, China agreed to join Russia in a national military exercise in which the two countries practiced, among other things, how they might handle war on the Korean Peninsula. But Beijing has not endorsed the invasion of Ukraine, nor has it provided direct military aid. When Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met in June and signed a treaty in which they pledged to support each other militarily if either was attacked, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called it a bilateral matter between Moscow and Pyongyang. When the United Arab Emirates had a maritime dispute with Iran, Beijing released a joint statement with the UAE declaring its support for a “peaceful solution.” And in January 2024, Chinese officials told their Iranian counterparts to curb Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, signaling that continued hostilities might jeopardize their economic relationship.

During the Cold War, China paid a price for sending mixed messages to its Soviet ally. Over time, Moscow moved away from Beijing, eventually leading to what analysts call the Sino-Soviet split. But this time, China’s authoritarian partners appear not to mind Russia’s behavior. Despite Beijing’s detachment, China is getting natural gas from Russia at a 44 percent discount compared with what Europe pays. Iran did not sign a letter condemning China for its violence against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and Tehran has offered Beijing political support for its takeover of Hong Kong and its claims to Taiwan.

All the while, Beijing has managed to stay on good terms with most U.S. allies. South Korea, and to a degree Japan, does not fully support U.S. deterrence efforts against China. Beijing remains both Japan’s and South Korea’s largest trading partner, even though it aids North Korea. Beijing has put enough distance between itself and Moscow that the EU felt comfortable trading over $800 billion in goods with China in 2023, or 15 percent of the EU’s total trade. During his 2023 visit to China, French President Emmanuel Macron said that his country would not blindly follow the United States in crises that are not its concern, specifically in reference to Taiwan. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has on multiple occasions claimed that Germany is not a part of a geopolitical bloc and will not join one. Similarly, China’s partnership with Iran has not jeopardized its ties with the Gulf States or Israel.

ORDER OF DISORDER

At first, it may seem as if China’s mixed approach to Iran, North Korea, and Russia should be tolerable for the United States. Under the status quo, after all, China is not giving Russia outright military aid with which to attack Ukraine. Beijing continues to support diplomacy to halt Iran’s nuclear program. The EU-Chinese relationship, meanwhile, could moderate Iran’s behavior.

The status quo is better than a situation in which Beijing provides full-throated support for these countries. But U.S. officials should take no comfort in the current situation. Neither the distance between China and its partners nor Beijing’s outreach to the West has truly acted as a constraint. China may occasionally wag its finger at Iran or quietly criticize Russia, but when push comes to shove, it is giving an enormous amount of help to these states. Beijing, for example, bolstered a disinformation campaign in 2022 claiming that U.S.-funded Ukrainian biolabs were making biological weapons—helping provide the justification for the invasion of Ukraine. The states work together to challenge the traditional human rights language used by international institutions, arguing that concepts such as civil liberties and the rule of law are exclusively Western constructs. Iran, North Korea, and Russia all use Chinese technology to repress their populations.

Beijing’s support for these states is most pronounced on matters of security and defense. It has provided them with sophisticated military technology and assistance. It has shared intelligence with Russia, including from its extensive satellite network, helping Moscow’s war efforts. Moscow, in turn, supplies Beijing with billions of dollars in weapons annually. These shipments have dramatically improved China’s ability to target U.S. jets, bases, and ships. Moscow has also given Beijing technology it can use to develop or enhance its domestic weapons production.

Russia’s partnership with China adds a terrifying new dynamic to U.S. nuclear calculations.

Partly as a result of this cooperation, the United States may be at a military disadvantage for the first time in decades. China alone has more active soldiers than does the United States. Beijing and Moscow together have more warships and tanks than Washington. Given how readily the former two governments cooperate, there is a good chance they might overpower U.S. forces if they fought together in a single military theater—for example, if China and Russia aid North Korea in a war against its southern neighbor or if Russia helps China with an attack on Taiwan.

The autocratic quad could also wreak havoc by fighting separately but simultaneously. The United States would struggle to win a two-front war. Instead, the American armed forces are structured to fight one major war while deterring smaller regional conflicts. That means if wars were raging in Europe, in the Middle East, on the Korean Peninsula, and over Taiwan, the United States would have to leave all but one of those theaters to largely fend for itself, at least initially.

Many U.S. allies have capable militaries that could battle axis members. But because they face their own regional demons, they are reluctant to help other states with their conflicts. In the event of a multifront war, they will want to keep their forces at home for self-defense. That means Washington cannot count on its allies to help U.S. troops even where it needs them most. If, for instance, the United States focused on defending Taiwan while North Korea was trying to seize South Korea, then Seoul and Tokyo would be either entirely or largely unwilling to give the United States support. In fact, concerns about North Korea have already made South Korea reluctant to let U.S. forces stationed within its borders take any actions beyond the Korean Peninsula. Europe, trying to protect its commercial ties, would almost certainly stay out of such a conflict.

To be sure, China would struggle to help its partners with their own fights if it had to take on the United States. During the Chinese Civil War, the Communists lost Taiwan partly because they chose to aid North Korea, giving U.S. President Harry Truman time to dispatch the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait and prevent an invasion. Chinese leader Xi Jinping will not want to repeat that mistake.

But any of these axis members can create crises that divert U.S. and allied resources without launching risky, full-blown conflicts. They can also give China an edge without joining its war. Russia, for example, could help China withstand an energy blockade by sending it oil and gas overland. The Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline, which sends Russian oil to Asian markets, can export about 35 million metric tons annually to China. The Power of Siberia pipeline, which transports natural gas to China, is expected to send 38 billion cubic meters per year by 2025—nearly equal to the amount of natural gas consumed annually by Australia. Moscow could also contribute its capital and labor to help China with manufacturing. The two states already have joint manufacturing systems in place, including those related to making weapons.

If Moscow chose to become just slightly more involved in a U.S.-Chinese war, it would create even bigger headaches. Russian fighter jets, for instance, could conduct defensive joint air patrols with Chinese forces, as they have done in the past. The United States might then refrain from hitting Chinese targets, if only to stop Russia from becoming a direct combatant.

Whatever Russia’s degree of involvement, its partnership with China adds a terrifying new dynamic to U.S. calculations. In the past, the United States has never had to contend with more than one nuclear peer. Now, with Beijing and Moscow, it has two. Unfortunately for Washington (and the world), attempts to prevent conflict with one of these governments could undermine deterrence against the other. For example, the United States signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with the Soviet Union in 1987 to eliminate their ground-launched intermediate-range missiles. It broadly succeeded and lowered tensions between the two countries. But the deal also left Beijing unconstrained, helping it gain a significant regional advantage in intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Future negotiations between any two of the three countries could again give the third an incentive for nuclear proliferation.

UNITE AND CONQUER

Some American strategists have suggested that to handle this axis, Washington should try dividing it. U.S. officials appear to be listening. In March 2023, for example, Blinken sought to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow by preying on the latter’s insecurities: “Russia is very much the junior partner in this relationship,” he said. Such efforts could hark back to the Cold War, when Washington worked to divide the fraught Chinese-Soviet axis. As Beijing and Moscow grew more distant, U.S. diplomats established channels of communication with their Chinese counterparts, leading to U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. Seven years later, China and the United States established formal relations. Eventually, they even worked together to spy on the Soviets.

But today, such efforts would be for naught. The autocratic axis provides Beijing with political support, energy supplies, and technology that it just cannot get from the West. Attempts to convince any of these countries that their autocratic colleagues present a greater threat than the United States are as ineffective as they are foolish.

Instead of trying to split the bloc, the United States must do the opposite: treat its members as entirely interlinked. That means ensuring poor behavior on the part of one leads to penalties for the others. Instead of exclusively sanctioning Chinese companies that support Russia’s war effort, the United States could treat the Chinese state as a supporting entity and implement economic restrictions against the whole country. It could tell Beijing those restrictions will remain in place until Russia comes to the negotiating table. Beijing will cry foul, claiming it has no influence over Moscow. This might, indeed, be the case. But with skin in the game, China will work harder to acquire the influence it needs to successfully pressure Russia.

If Washington wants to be the leader of the whole world, it will need to gain support from autocracies.

Grouping China and its partners could also help Washington unify its own coalition. Europe may not fully grasp the threat Beijing poses to the international order, but it surely understands the dangers emanating from Moscow. Yet the United States has not done nearly enough to explain to European countries why China and Russia are broadly connected, instead emphasizing the narrow links Beijing has to Moscow’s invasion. If Washington can explain the bigger relationship, Europeans will be more likely to take Beijing’s security challenge seriously and be more proactive in attempting to shape its behavior.

Yet the United States should still​​ avoid an ideological approach. Although it should treat these autocratic countries as a bloc, it should avoid framing the global competition as one of democracies against autocracies. Autocratic partners (such as Saudi Arabia) will not want to help Washington prevail against China if the contest is about systems of government. Neither will many potential democratic partners in the developing world, such as Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa. In fact, China has built a wide network of friends by being regime agnostic and focusing on development. In his speeches to foreign audiences, for example, Xi loves to play up Beijing’s respect for “state sovereignty,” its commitment to “noninterference,” and its desire to see poor countries grow rich. The developing world has listened. In the summer of 2024, when Xi met with José Ramos-Horta, the president of East Timor—a small, impoverished, and highly democratic state—Ramos-Horta declared that he did not care about great-power rivalries or the character of his country’s allies. If China can alleviate East Timor’s poverty and malnutrition, Ramos-Horta said, “then China is my hero.”

Washington should take a page from Beijing’s book. If it wants to be the leader of the whole world, not just the free world, it will need to gain support from developing democracies and autocracies alike. (According to Freedom House, 80 percent of people on earth live in countries that are either not free or only partly free.) It needs to be more agile, tailoring its offerings and messaging to address what each country cares about. This process involves not only offering more aid but also contributing to the right types of projects, such as ones related to health care, higher education, and cybersecurity. It means greater diplomatic engagement, military cooperation, and people-to-people ties.

It is true that, by applying more pressure, Washington and its allies may push Beijing to forge stronger connections with Iran, North Korea, and Russia. But China already substantially benefits from these relationships, so the United States has no choice but to take a tougher stance. The reality is that anything the United States does to impose costs on China will upset Beijing. The only way to avoid that is to give it what it wants, which is territorial control over Taiwan, maritime control of the South China Sea, and economic, military, and political dominance in Asia. Washington cannot be afraid to make China pay for helping bad actors, especially when holding back lets Beijing pretend to be above the fray.