Responsible Statecraft
It would be an unexpected development, as both countries have long eschewed Cold War-style blocs and alliances.
At the end of November, reports that Russia and China had secretly signed a defense agreement started to appear.
A November article on the website of Russia Matters of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center reported that, when Putin went to Beijing on February 4, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he and Chinese President Xi Jinping secretly signed an agreement “that their countries would come to each other’s aid militarily, but only in the case of a foreign invasion.” The article cites “long-time Russia watcher Owen Matthews.”
Matthews subsequently reported in a November 26 article that, in a “confidential annex” to their February 4 agreement, was “a mutual security guarantee that Russia had sought from China for decades but hitherto been unable to obtain. . .. Like Nato’s Article 5 — that an attack on one member is an attack on all — Beijing and Moscow pledged to come to each other’s aid militarily in the case of a foreign invasion of their territory and if special conditions were satisfied concerning the cause of such an invasion.” Matthews cited “a source with longstanding close ties to the top levels of China’s political and military leadership.”
