China, Russia: Co-dependence day
Also: Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, and the DRC.
Geopolitical Dispatch is the daily global intelligence and risk briefing of Geopolitical Strategy, an advisory firm specialising exclusively in geopolitical risk.
CHINA. RUSSIA. Co-dependence day
Xi and Putin need each other in different ways.
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin met on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Kazakhstan, Wednesday; their second meeting in two months. Putin said the bilateral relationship was enjoying its "best period in history".
INTELLIGENCE. The leaders met for the 40th time, in Xi’s words, as “old friends” but since their last encounter, Putin’s visit to Pyongyang will have provoked Beijing. Still, neither side can do without the other. While Russia is generally portrayed as a junior partner, its economy is in some ways doing better than China’s (it became a high-income country on World Bank indicators this week) and it retains superiority in nuclear arms, air power and natural resources.
FOR BUSINESS. Russia needs China for capital and technology. China needs Russia for resources that cannot be blocked by the US Navy, and as a fall-back for military supplies and know-how. With its army now experienced against NATO weapons, and its arms industry revived by dint of (self-inflicted) circumstances, Russia would be invaluable to China in a Taiwan crisis, even if it didn’t officially enter the war. Russia is also a key vector of RMB internationalisation.
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UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Offers you can refuse
Multiple actors seek to define an eventual deal.
Hungary's Viktor Orban said Wednesday Volodymyr Zelensky had turned down his proposal for an "immediate truce" during a visit to Kyiv. The Kremlin rebuffed an offer from Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan to negotiate an end to the conflict.
INTELLIGENCE. Multiple parties, from Xi Jinping to Donald Trump, have hinted at plans to end the war in Ukraine but