China intensifies military drills with Russia amid US sanctions

China intensifies military drills with Russia amid US sanctions

Kari Lindberg 

President Xi Jinping has resisted crossing Washington’s red lines over arming Russia’s war machine in Ukraine. But that hasn’t stopped China edging closer to Moscow’s military in another way: direct engagement.

China and the armed forces of Vladimir Putin conducted six joint military exercises together last year, the most in data going back two decades.

That accounted for two-thirds of all China’s drills with foreign militaries in 2022, according to data compiled by the U.S. National Defense University’s Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs.

Five of the exercises took place after Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, the data show. Four of them were bilateral, while two were held with U.S. adversaries including Iran and Syria.

“Xi has every reason to preserve and enhance China’s strategic alignment with Russia,” said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “It’s the most effective way to counterbalance against U.S. power.”

As China ramps up pressure on Taiwan, the self-ruled island Xi has vowed to claim someday, the U.S. has expanded its military presence in Asia. It recently signed a defense pact with the Philippines and opened another base on Guam. China’s concerns over U.S. military encirclement come as Russia protests North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces inching up to its borders.

Against that backdrop, Xi has refused to condemn Putin’s war. Instead, China has provided economic and diplomatic shelter to Moscow by buying its cheap commodities and via political engagement. The Chinese leader’s sole trip abroad this year so far was to Moscow.

At the same time, China has frozen high-level military dialogue with the U.S. over sanctions it imposed on Defense Minister Li Shangfu for a 2018 Russian arms purchase. The U.S. and China haven’t held joint drills since 2020, and those involved disaster response. Risky interactions between their militaries have raised fears an accident could spill into a confrontation.

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