Russia and China have begun their first joint naval war games in the Mediterranean, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The 10 days of maneuvers that got underway Monday will include live-fire exercises in the strategic sea connecting Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The point is lost on no one: A powerful new alliance of eastern giants is flexing its muscles in the very backyard of Western Europe — much as China has done on its own in the Pacific.
The war games follow Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, where he headlined Victory Day celebrations and spent three days making billion-dollar deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s World War II allies mostly stayed away.
The LA Times pointed out that the Russia-China alliance remains fragile despite efforts at closer ties.
"People who call this an axis of convenience ... are missing the bigger picture," said Gilbert Rozman, a Princeton University professor who writes and teaches on Northeast Asian affairs. "This is a relationship about national identity and the big efforts in both countries to establish a different kind of international order."
The emerging Sino-Russian alliance remains fragile and its partners wary, political analysts note. Both Russia and China are vying for influence in Central Asia, for instance. But Putin’s push to work with those now-independent former Soviet states has gained little traction against the reality of Beijing’s head start in sewing up energy contracts and infrastructure projects with the "stans" that flank its western border.