Everyone remembers former U.S. President George W. Bush’s 2002 designation of an “axis of evil,” at the time comprising Ali Khamenei’s Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. Today, experts at the the Center for a New American Security refer to an “axis of the upheaval” and former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster to an “axis of the aggressors” in order to describe the dynamics between China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
Europe is also concerned by the ties between the Asian and European strategic theaters. China is in a state of quasi-alliance with Russia, which has invaded Ukraine, as demonstrated by Marcin Kaczmarski, in “strategic cooperation” with Iran, which entertains its own axis of disruption through the Middle East as evidenced by Pierre Pinhas. Meanwhile, Beijing in 2021 renewed a mutual defense treaty with North Korea – the only such formal alliance that China entertains, as Adam Cathcart explains.
As always in these links, one must wonder who is really in control, and who is being driven. Junior partners may also pursue autonomy in their decisions, and even bring their senior partner down a road it did not wish to travel.
Junior and Senior Partners: Who Has the Lead?
That question is particularly acute for China. North Korea uses almost any burning international crisis to advance its own agenda. There is increasing suspicion – even in China – that Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic program benefits from Russian technology obtained against the delivery of weapons and ammunition, though the overt quid pro quo is North Korea’s access to food.
Russia may or may not have informed Beijing of its intentions against Ukraine, and its blustering with nuclear threats does not sit well with Beijing.
Iran itself, drawn into further conflict by its Hamas proxy and the need to support Hezbollah, has hurt the balance that China was seeking to keep in its relations with Israel. China has been forced to choose Iran over Israel – an opportunistic move that could in the end prove less than opportune.
More broadly, China has built important and profitable economic relationships with nearly every country squaring off against these questionable partners. Russia’s war on Ukraine is today the number one security concern of Europe, increasingly described as a European “core interest.” China has built profitable relations throughout the Near and Middle East, including all Gulf states and Israel, with which relations had been blooming. China has also achieved a positive trade balance with Japan and recently with South Korea. There is even deeper trade integration of South Korea’s economy into China’s trade sphere.
Yet China’s global export drive is meeting new barriers and de-risking is becoming a widely shared policy among China’s trade partners. There is a distinct possibility of being drawn by geopolitics into a downward economic spiral. This is not fully recognized by Chinese leaders, who see their impressive export success as the result of their own policies, and not as that of more prudent predecessors.
China’s assertive and even aggressive posture in its neighborhood is already creating a backlash as seen in the surge of military spending across Asia and the renewed vigor in defense partnerships with the United States. Still, does Washington have enough military strength and will power to deter China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea if they combine forces? China evidently believes that projecting strength and strong-arming neighbors is as effective as making itself economically irreplaceable.
But how far does this strategy extend to other partnerships, if it has undesirable consequences for China? Where to draw the line? China’s responses to this dilemma reflect a balancing act. One should often distinguish between words and deeds. In its public diplomacy, China presents itself as a promoter of peace and a mediator, as a paragon of stability. It acknowledges national sovereignty and territorial integrity – but does not apply explicitly these values to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Lately, it has become a vocal critic of the division of the world in “two camps,” a general designation that intends to be broader than its traditional rejection of alliances. The term implies that crises must be solved bilaterally or regionally, avoiding escalation and prioritizing the agency of individual states over strategic alignment. Against this, China’s proclamation of a “friendship without limits” with Russia only days before the invasion of Ukraine does not sit well, nor does its lack of balance in statements concerning specific crises. While there is professed neutrality on Russia’s war with Ukraine, China puts the blame for the conflict with a faulty European security architecture and with NATO eastward’s expansion, while never actually condemning Russia’s moves.
A New Doctrine on Sanctions
Similarly, China proclaims respect and support for the United Nations as the arbiter of international disputes. Yet, beyond the abstract mention of international law, this respect is no longer accompanied by support for international sanctions. In principle, China may sign up to sanctions endorsed by the U.N. In practice, it stands with Russia in blocking any such decision at the Security Council and has effectively neutered the U.N. committee created to oversee their implementation in the case of North Korea.
Indeed, the increased sanctions against Russia starting in 2022 – including the seizure of financial state holdings abroad – have changed China’s calculus. Technological export controls by some of China’s partners are viewed by Beijing as sanctions. It systematically opposes their adoption, while busily creating mirror legislation enabling similar bans.
In truth, China has always used the opportunity of U.S. or Western sanctions to improve its own economic relations with the states coming under these sanctions. And this has in some cases been tacitly accepted by Washington. In the interest of global oil supply, China’s continuing purchases from Iran were tolerated, including a never fully implemented agreement to develop the South Pars Iranian gas field. Today’s sanctions against Russia have even larger loopholes for oil and gas. China has vastly increased its exports with Russia while displacing Europe as a major energy buyer from Moscow.
Rhetorically, Beijing is blurring its stand regarding the most questionable partners by adopting and using the notion of a “Global South.” The term originated in the West but is now used by Chinese public diplomacy to its advantage on the Ukraine file. A key claim is that China’s response to the war in Ukraine, including the view that this is both an issue of regional European security and the result of a faulty European security architecture – not to mention U.S. influence – is shared by all countries in the so-called Global South. This includes the rejection of sanctions designated as Western, even though states such as Japan, South Korea, and Singapore in Asia actually implement such sanctions.
Strikingly, on the refusal or circumvention of sanctions against Russia, China indeed finds itself in good company. Apart from European and East Asian allies, no nation follows them, except when compelled to do so. Much of China’s trade with Russia flows through countries as diverse as Kazakhstan and Turkey, while re-exported liquified natural gas finds its way to Europe.
But is this the consequence of the “historical change unseen in a century” that China claims in its favor? Is the Global South the safe anchor for China’s most questionable partnerships? This remains doubtful. Even without resurrecting the notion of the Third World, emerging and developing countries – with the exception of directly concerned nations – have never joined Western alliances or formal coalitions, whether during the Korean, Vietnam, or Gulf wars. The problem for the United States and its transatlantic and its Pacific allies today is not so much the change of doctrine in the Global South. It is rather the global shift in economic growth that has given much more importance to states often grouped under the mantra of neutrality or non-alignment.
Support Without Crossing the Red Lines
Still, China is aware of the risks it runs by exceeding red lines with the quasi-allies in a revisionist axis. Published expertise from China shows awareness of the fault lines in Russia, Iran, and North Korea, even if this is said in very restrained ways. North Korea’s aid dependence is cited. There is particular criticism of a new North Korea-Russia alliance, including potential nuclear technology transfer, and also because it would spark stronger action by the United States and Asian allies.
On Iran, while experts minimize the impact of the “headscarf protests” and of Masoud Pezeshkian’s election, they acknowledge mounting social woes and do not hesitate to mention enemy infiltration in Iran’s security apparatus. Interestingly, in December 2022 and June 2024, China has issued statements supporting the United Arab Emirates in efforts to solve the issue of Persian Gulf islands (Abu Musa and Tunb) occupied by Iran.
Apart from the reluctance toward Russia’s ever tighter relationship with North Korea, it is hard to find any distancing away from Moscow. Often cited by others, but not so much in China, is Xi Jinping’s statement with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz against the use, or the threat to use, nuclear weapons. Any mention of weapon transfers to Russia or trade in dual-use goods – whether by China itself, or by Iran and North Korea – is generally taboo in Chinese analysis. Is this restraint in words, or restraint in action? Abundant trade in semiconductors flows through Hong Kong and third countries.
But even the United States treads lightly on these issues, perhaps persuaded that practical restraint is better obtained through silence – or by not accusing China of crossing red lines. As for Europe, it has not yet found the key to contain China’s support for Russia.
In the coming weeks and months, it will be very interesting to observe any change in China’s relations with Iran as hostilities with Israel mount. Will the sudden and huge strategic loss for the ayatollahs in Lebanon and beyond change China’s calculus? As the benefits of supporting Iran dwindle, will its costs be reevaluated? This is an important test of the real motivations of China’s relations with the new “axis of upheaval” countries.
This article was originally published as the introduction to China Trends 21, the quarterly publication of the Asia Program at Institut Montaigne. Institut Montaigne is a nonprofit, independent think tank based in Paris, France.