The new axis and the battle for the next world order
The growing strategic convergence of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea is bringing a new geopolitical rivalry into sharper focus. Their expanding cooperation across defence, technology, trade and cyberspace is steadily altering the global balance of power and posing the most significant challenge yet to American primacy
United States (US) strategic circles have been awash in a new lexicon after Bradley L Bowman, Elaine K Dezenski, and Rear Admiral (Retd) Mark Montgomery of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies argued in Axis of Aggressors: Countering the Cooperation of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea that the four nations — China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran - now function as a strategically aligned bloc even without a formal mutual-defence treaty. The findings are seminal, foreshadowing a ‘churn’ in the emerging world order, where quadrilaterals and minilaterals that seemed unimaginable just a decade ago are gathering momentum and becoming credible power blocs. The ‘new axis’ is largely ascribed to authoritarianism and cooperation across military, economic, cyber, and technology domains, which is forging a formidable partnership to counter the US. China-Russia ties form the core of this partnership, while Iran and North Korea play supporting roles. Indeed, the opacity of such bloc politics only deepens the intrigue.
What is increasingly evident is that cooperation among the four has intensified after the Ukraine war, a turning point that provoked a coordinated response from outside powers. The alignment, though fractured and far from cohesive, seeks to cushion the blow from Western sanctions through alternative trade networks and technology transfers, largely in response to tariffs imposed by the US on several non-Western countries. Most importantly, the book stands as a testament to the fact that US policymakers are not deceiving themselves and are fully aware of the looming threat that a renewed Sino-Russian entente could pose, calling it a dangerous threat environment for Washington.
Since BRICS entered mainstream geopolitical discourse, policymakers have speculated about new power groupings. Among them is the proposed ‘QUADRO’—an informal alliance of the US, Russia, China, and India. While such a coalition appears unlikely, it also challenges the notion of America’s inevitable decline. Despite its relatively short history, the US has remained the world’s dominant power since the Second World War and is unlikely to allow any emerging bloc to overturn the existing global balance of power. Rather than falling into the Thucydides Trap, a ‘prolonged struggle for assertion’ between the ruling hegemon and the emerging bloc appears more likely. While some elements of this transition are already visible, others are being pursued with mounting vigour. These pertain to cyber operations, digital surveillance, semiconductor supply chains, artificial intelligence (AI), and dual-use technologies. The US will look to counter this axis head-on by confronting security challenges and reinventing the wheel of domestic nationalism.
Two playbooks, one retreat
More revealing, however, is the contrast in strategic conduct. While US policymakers have been outspoken about their strategy and intent, China has consistently pursued a more restrained and covert approach. US policymakers have, at times, overreached on America’s ability to shape global politics through military interventions and expansive security commitments; China, on the other hand, in keeping with Sun Tzu’s traditional doctrine, has sought to win wars without even fighting them.
This has meant that while the US has fallen prey to strategic overreach and suffered setbacks in Afghanistan and Iraq, China has enjoyed the spoils of shooting from Russia’s shoulder. Over time, China has been able to garner resources and trust from its neighbours and allies while supporting conflicts in Ukraine, Iran, and the South China Sea and - wherever it has chosen to intervene through supply of weapons (often to both sides of the conflict) — before selectively applying international norms.
Thus, while the US is criticised for advocating a rules-based order while simultaneously flouting it with its carrot-and-stick approach to neighbours under Pax Americana, China and Russia are likewise criticised for invoking sovereignty and non-interference while violating these very principles when it suits their strategic interests. Equally, the hypocrisy of an ascendant Chinese order can no longer be hidden behind the rhetoric of a ‘peaceful rise’. The emerging Sino-centric order, though outwardly benign and largely propagated through economic statecraft — simultaneously empowering and entrapping states through economic dependence — is engineered upon a dangerous chessboard of espionage, misinformation, and military balancing.
China has covertly abetted war and, most importantly, won it, without the international system even recognising the discrepancies it has exploited. Take the Ukraine war, which has turned out to be a bloody nose for the Russians: it could have easily culminated in Russia’s favour had China not supplied the constant barrage of arms and ammunition to Ukraine. However, for the sake of ‘justice’, Beijing maintained that it had a concurrent obligation to help Kyiv during the war and came up with a charade of measures to try to end the war through a peace proposal on its own terms.
Whose order wins?
Similarly, China has been at the forefront of regional balancing, as demonstrated at the recent China-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at the held in Manila, where the two sides expressed concern that ‘the rapidly evolving situation in the Middle East and its spillover effects pose a grave threat to the lives and safety of civilians, as well as to regional and global peace, stability, and economic activities including regional trade, investment, energy, and food security’. Manufacturing solidarity over the situation in the Middle East within ASEAN again gives a boost to China’s regional aspirations and reveals China’s ability to deftly steer an agenda that normally should be restricted to its bilateral economic and cultural engagement. This underscores China’s rising influence and the shrinking space for dissent within regional groupings. China has been ASEAN’s largest trading partner for 16 consecutive years, and the effects of that dependence are becoming increasingly apparent.
Interestingly, at this meeting, both China and ASEAN called for the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula — but the ASEAN community almost lost face when, in a rare show of defiance, North Korea lambasted the grouping and called the proposal a ‘stupid and foolish wild dream’. Pyongyang reiterated that its status as a nuclear weapons state was ‘final and irreversible’, thereby posing a challenge to China’s power assertion and dashing its hopes of regional balancing. However, this exposes the deeper hypocrisy when it comes to recognising nuclear-armed states and the politics of nuclear brinkmanship. Though China has unilaterally given up testing nuclear weapons and promised not to resort to any armed assault or race, the exclusivity of the nuclear club itself raises questions of privilege and denial. By raising this issue at the ASEAN Regional Forum, China also seeks to expand and assert its concerns. Doing so enables China to maximise its geographical reach across this part of the globe, especially where US influence seems restrained at the moment.
Undoubtedly, all major powers in the international system tend to display selective adherence to international rules, though the scope and methods of their actions differ. But when the clash between two distinctive orders lays bare the inner tenets of those systems, it is far easier to see through the hypocrisy of the aspiring hegemon than that of the current flagbearer. Today, as liberal democracies clash with a still-forming authoritarian order, the real question is on what terms the authoritarians will hold the mantle. Can they wield it more effectively than the order that is receding and for how long? Will they be able to rewrite the rules of the playbook any better than the receding states and empires.
China has covertly abetted war and, most importantly, won it, without the international system even recognising the discrepancies it has exploited. Take the Ukraine war, which has turned out to be a bloody nose for the Russians: it could have easily culminated in Russia’s favour had China not supplied the constant barrage of arms and ammunition to Ukraine.
The writer is a Visiting Fellow at the Chintan Research Foundation; Views presented are personal.
