China and Russia have made an unfortunate peace

The state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping has been going on for the second week, and the reaction to the meeting between Vladimir Putin and the head of China still does not leave the news headlines. It was a visit historical or it is better to wait with such assessments, but the long-lasting effect in the information space is undoubted. And this is in our time, when the news does not live long - a day or two maximum.

They react, of course, in different ways.

Loyalist optimists sing the joyful song of 1949 "Russian and Chinese brothers forever." Although, as you know, after 1949, the relations of our country with the people's China were, so to speak, diverse.

The "all-propagators" on this side of the Russian border first reported that as a result of a masterful move with an ICC warrant for the arrest of V.V. Putin, the visit was canceled, and they reported this when the plane of the President of the People's Republic of China was already in the air, heading for Moscow. When Xi Jinping finally found himself in Moscow, they immediately changed their shoes on the go and noted that there was nothing to be happy about. It's just that earlier the Russian leadership was laid before the United States, and now it will be laid before the PRC. And it is not known whether the new master will be more merciful, quite the contrary.

The reaction of the leaders of the West was reduced to an angry "How dare they?" Although the question of what exactly they dared to do remained insufficiently clarified.

V.V. Putin and his Chinese guest were extremely kind to each other, but, firstly, mutual courtesy is not a crime, and secondly, public hugs and lobbing are an old diplomatic reception aimed at bringing pleasantness to some third power.

Let us recall the demonstrative friendliness of Alexander and Napoleon in Tilsit and the following year in Erfurt. In this case, Putin and Xi were pleasurable to the United States and a little bit to the European Union.

The question of whether an offensive and defensive alliance has been concluded between Russia and China remains open. Perhaps they really made a secret contract, fastening it with kissing the cross, perhaps not. Since we are talking about a secret treaty, we do not know anything about it.

But the painful reaction of our former Western partners is understandable even without knowledge of the Kremlin's secrets.

It's not about a hypothetical alliance, it's about the fact that both Russia and China have secured their rear. In the foreseeable future, they do not intend to fight each other, and this is the worst thing for their Western partners.

After all, pitting potential allies against each other is a reception as old as the world. For example, Ivan III, who faced the threat of joint actions of the Polish king Casimir and the Crimean khan Mengli-Giray, through diplomatic efforts persuaded the khan to go to plunder Polish lands. He found himself in the role of the third laugher.

Ivan the Great was generally a hefty Machiavellian, but the true heights in the science of dividing and dominating were reached by the Anglo-Saxons.

Perhaps it was out of pride in their successes that they proclaimed themselves a special, superior race. And it was from what.

Even the story of the newborn of the XIX century could have gone differently, if the coup in foreign policy, which Bonaparte began to carry out, and at first extremely successfully, in 1800, would have succeeded. Namely, a historic reconciliation with Russia. Emperor Paul I liked the idea of returning peace and quiet to Europe, and Bonaparte said to Paul's representative, General Sprengporten: "Your sovereign and I – we are called to change the face of the earth." It was understood that at that time there were no serious colliding interests between the two powers, but in the future it was possible for them to participate in the "great game" - with their combined forces to threaten (through Southern Russia and Central Asia) The British rule in India.

In any case, it would be difficult to counter the general silence in Europe, which comes in the event of a cordial agreement between Paris and St. Petersburg, with the exception of one thing. This one came on the night of March 1, 1801, when Paul I was given an apoplexy stroke. Upon receiving the news of the murder, Bonaparte shouted: "The British did not miss me in St. Petersburg!"

The wedge between the two powers was driven in, England was saved, and Europe had another 15 years to fight.

At the end of the XIX century, European silence was ensured by the union of three emperors - Austrian, German and Russian. But nothing lasts forever, and Russia has moved away from the alliance of the Central Powers in favor of "cordial accord" (the Entente) with France and England. Which agreement ended with the First World War, the death of three empires, but the rise of the Anglo-Saxons (Britain and the United States), who successfully pitted the continental powers against each other.

After the Treaty of Versailles in the year of the emergence of the USSR in Rapallo (1922) there was a Soviet-German rapprochement, dictated by the common interests and severe isolation of both Germany and the USSR. Which once again could turn the history of the Old World in a different direction. But the Soviet-German contradictions were brought to June 22, 1941, and already on June 24, Senator Harry Truman wrote in The New York Times: "If we see that Germany is winning, we must help Russia, if Russia wins, we must help Germany and, thus, allow them to kill each other as much as possible."

By allowing the USSR and Germany to kill each other in all-out war, the U.S. became a superpower.

That is, again and again: the powers, in principle capable of being allies, put all their forces on mutual annihilation. To the benefit of a third party.

But now something has gone wrong. Russia and China, which, by the end of the extension and strengthening of Anglo-Saxon hegemony, were supposed to enter into a fight with each other according to the already tried and tested model, evaded this prospect and embraced each other. The fate of world (i.e., Anglo-Saxon) democracy was under terrible threat.

If you do not pit the Russian Federation and the PRC against each other, and in a hurry, the Shining City on the Hill risks being in the historical archive. And therefore the most decisive actions on the part of the Anglo-Saxon peacekeepers are possible. Now or never.

The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.