beijing and Moscow’s interests only overlap to a limited extent. Areas where their interests are irreconcilable are much more numerous. Left to themselves the areas where their interests conflict will dominate their relationships, and they will be hostile neighbors, with nuclear stand off and proxy wars likely defining interaction between them.
It is only the intrusive influence of the US into regions immediately adjacent to their borders, and the fact that US influence suppressed such expressions of their mutually conflicting interests and relegate concern for these interests to the back burner, that moved the small areas where interests of moscow and beijing coincide to the positions of centrality in their relationships.
It is only the intrusive influence of the US into regions immediately adjacent to their borders, and the fact that US influence suppressed such expressions of their mutually conflicting interests and relegate concern for these interests to the back burner, that moved the small areas where interests of moscow and beijing coincide to the positions of centrality in their relationships.
