To shout it at the four winds first, almost angrily, was Alexander Lukashenko: “The maneuvers of Donald Trump on Ukraine have a hidden reason,” said the mustaches of Belarus at the end of February, “because what he wants, in reality, is only to divide Russia from China. But we will not afford it ». In power since 1994, linked to Vladimir Putin from a 360 degree understanding, Lukashenko is known for his clarity, often without diplomatic brakes. In short, what he says must be heard. In this case, his words had to be read with particular attention because Lukashenko knows well what he talks about: in recent years he has also approached Xi Jinping, so he is in close contact with both poles of what Washington calls “The New Axis of Evil”, that is, the new axis of evil: the “diabolical alliance” between Moscow and Beijing.
Today, less than a month later, most international analysts give reason to Lukashenko: The latest moves of the White House, which raise so much clamor in the rest of the West and which for us Europeans are wrong, unjustifiable, unacceptable, from the point of view of Washington have a logical explanation. Because Trump’s goal is to snatch Russia from the embrace with China, a hug that risks being fatal for the United States.
Only that strategic and crucial reason, in fact, can fully explain the sharp removal of Trump from Volodymyr Zelensky And the unworthy treatment reserved for Ukrainian premier in the oval room, on February 28, as well as the disconcerting decision to abandon Ukraine to its destiny, suddenly depriving it of military and intelligence aid and exposing it to Russian attacks. With these moves, Trump tries – desperately – to convince Putin to trust him. The same reason is the basis of political and commercial clashes with the European Union, and threats to get out of NATO or to retire from the old continent. Analysts have even come to give a title to this strategy: “Kissinger Reverse”, that is, “Kissinger on the contrary”. Because the result to which the American president aims is in fact reversed compared to the one successful between 1970 and 1972 to Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State of Richard Nixon. Over half a century ago, with his missions in Beijing, Kissinger had brought Mao Zedong China closer to the United States, pushing her to take sides politically and militarily against the Soviet Union. That move, after twenty years later, would have contributed to the fall of the USSR and to the American victory in the Cold War. Today the United States of Trump are literally terrified of the Moscow-Pecchino axis: Russia and China have never been so close. Their “diabolical alliance” was born from a pact signed three years ago and passed semi-inherent.
It was February 4, 2022, exactly 20 days were missing from the invasion of Ukraine, and that cursed Friday Putin had flown to Beijing – Officially – because Xi had invited him to the inauguration of the Chinese Winter Olympics. The two dictators, however, had spent part of the day at a table in the Zhongnanhai, the imposing Red Palace, seat of the Chinese Communist Party and Communist Party. And they were getting up with an agreement from the high -sounding: “A new era in international relations”. An agreement that deeply changed the relationships between the two regimes, but also the world balances. In the 13 -page “joint final declaration”, the only part of the public rendering agreement, Russia and China with force condemned “the attempt of the United States to undermine world strategic strategic strategist and their” intention of maintaining the absolute military advantage “. And precisely to counter Washington, Beijing and Moscow opened to “an era of new relationships (…) higher than all political and military alliances after the Cold War”, starting exchanges in every field: economic, energy, technological, military … Alexey Muraviev, professor at the University of Perth and among the most accredited experts in military strategy, underlines that it is only thanks to the agreement of 4 February 2022 2022 2022 2022 2022 If Putin “already in the following days, he was able to subtract tens of thousands of soldiers from the Oriental Russian districts and Siberia, on the border with China, to transfer them to the Ukrainian front”. But even more serious is what happened in the following three years. Because it is true that since 2022 Beijing has never officially approved the Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, has guaranteed a fundamental diplomatic, economic and military support in Moscow. The Reuters agency estimates that the exchange between the two states increased from $ 147 billion of 2021 to 244 billion in 2024. XI, in fact, allowed Putin to resist the embargo on energy products decreed by the European Union. Russian sales of gas to China have gone granted thanks to the completion of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline: exports took tripled from 10 billion cubic meters of 2021 to 31 of 2024. And in 2025 it could reach 38, if the Power of Siberia 2 will enter. Beijing in short, partly compensated the collapse of the Russian sales of gas to Europe – Billions of cubic meters of 2021 – by obtaining more energy at low price: China today pays Russian gas $ 150-200 per thousand cubic meters, half of how much Europe paid before the vigor of Ukraine.
To worry the Pentagon, however, is above all the military field, where Russians and Chinese now collaborate closely: From November 2024 planes and ships of the two states patrol the Arctic together. But cooperation is still more intense in armament systems. The Strategic Studies Institute of the United States Army estimates that since 2022 “Chinese exports of essential products for the war industry in Russia is more than tripled”. In return, Russia has provided Military Technology to Beijing-from the Missilistic Systems of Anti-Aetean S-400 defense, among the most effective in the world, to the “ghost” hunt Sukhoi Su-35-which “has drastically enhanced Chinese control over the skies in the Indo-Pacific, doubling the difficulties that the United States would face if Taiwan defends”. The joint development has extended to the ballistic missiles, and Moscow for a few months has a new gigantic hypersonic Oreshnik missile (six nuclear newspapers, 13 thousand kilometers of speed hours: it could hit Rome in 13 minutes) whose technology affects Beijing. Russia and China are also engaged in the joint development of nuclear submarines, a fundamental weapon for Beijing who in 2023 has already exceeded the United States in the number of warships: today there are 370 against 296. In short, cooperation creates dangers never seen for the United States. “Sales of Russian weapons and military cooperation”, reads a report by the US Army War College of November 2024, “have enhanced the attacking capabilities of China, aggravating the challenges for the US defense, especially in view of a potential conflict in the Indus-Pacific”. And the Strategic Studies Institute fears that the diabolical alliance obliges the Pentagon to a near future of difficult choices: “Based on the current structure of the American armed forces”, says a report from last December, “today it would be impossible to face two all -field wars in Europe and in the Pacific at the same time” balance the differential between their respective nuclear deterrent ». China currently has about 500 newspapers, against 3,700 Americans, but plans to double them in ten years. In the meantime, the Russian nuclear arsenal, thanks to 4,380 newspapers, “indirectly reduces the risk represented by US superiority”. Everything is closed in these elements the reason for Donald Trump’s cynical choices: he knows that the opponent with which the United States will have to confront in the coming years is China, whose aggression in the Pacific quadrant continues to grow, and that “distractions” are no longer allowed.
But will the American president ever manage to put a wedge in the diabolical alliance? It will not be easy for him, even if he can play on Putin’s personal sympathy and above all on his fear, in the end, to be engulfed by the too powerful embrace of XI China. The problems, for Trump, are many. The American magazine Diplomat claims that “decades of sanctions, and the expansion of NATO in the east” have made Moscow “skeptical about the intentions of Washington” and believes “unlikely that Russia puts at risk an advantageous relationship with China for an uncertain alliance with a power that historically is hostile”. The economist then stresses that “the competition for global supremacy will last well beyond the four years of Trump”. The English weekly means that Putin knows perfectly that in the White House in 2029, after the republican president, one could arrive with very different ideas. This is how: after all, the possibility of changing government is one of the great strengths of democracy. But it is a defect in the eyes of any dictator.
