record of 77.6 million tonnes.84 Beijing and Moscow also initiated a “Power of Siberia” natural gas pipeline to the PRC, a $55 billion project over the next three decades that forms part of a larger $400 billion development deal for Russian natural gas.85 In addition, Russia and China cooperate in pursuit of energy in the Arctic, though Moscow and other Arctic nations eye with varying degrees of wariness the PRC’s efforts to establish itself as a “near-Arctic state.”86
Beijing and Moscow share a strong interest in the race for advanced technologies, with Russian President Vladimir Putin describing the U.S.-led international campaign against China’s telecommunications giant Huawei as “the first technological war of the coming digital era.”87 Authoritarian powers deeply distrustful of their own peoples, the PRC and Russia cooperate on surveillance and artificial intelligence for security and strategic applications.88
The convergence in their extensive use of propaganda and disinformation reflects the growing strategic alignment between Russia and China. Like Russia, the PRC finds fertile opportunities for expanding influence in European countries that are struggling to fight endemic corruption as they build sturdy, transparent, and accountable political institutions. Both China and Russia use strategic corruption — that is, the weaponization for strategic ends of corrupt individuals, organizations, and government bodies — to weaken freedom and democracy.89 Chinese influence operations in Europe, which have accelerated amid the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly resemble those of Russia in their aggressive use of disinformation, manipulation of social divisions, and propagation of conspiracies.
The renewed Sino-Russian partnership involves a consequential military component. Having long served as China’s principal arms supplier and exercise partner, Russia recently enhanced the types of weapons — including the S-400 air-defense system and Sovremenny-class destroyers and advanced cruise missiles for anti-ship warfare — that it sells to China.90 The partnership also has resulted in more sophisticated joint military exercises aimed at preparing for encounters with the United States and its allies and partners.91 Cooperation between Beijing and Moscow extends beyond the operational military level to include nuclear and strategic issues. In June 2019, Xi and Putin released a joint statement pledging to work together on nuclear arms-control issues and committing to maintain global strategic stability.92 A short time later, the two nations marked a new stage of strategic cooperation by conducting a joint long-range bomber patrol with nuclear-capable aircraft that violated South Korean and Japanese airspace.93
