Valdai Club

The Russia–China relationship is not a marriage of convenience—though convenience plays its part—but a convergence of long-term visions for how the international system should be organized, writes Valdir da Silva Bezerra.

Following the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the world witnessed the most consequential act of infrastructure sabotage in European history, with the Nord Stream explosions of September 2022. In fact, the Nord Stream blast seemed to follow one of the most critical tenets of 20th-century British politics, formulated by the geographer Halford Mackinder, who advised against an alliance between Germany and Russia, as this would enable the Eurasian landmass to grow stronger than Great Britain’s sea power.