Russia

The South China Sea poses a stress test in Russia-China relations, pitting China’s claims against Russian energy interests.

Even though the countries are in a state of “non-war”, US-China tensions will not go away, says Chinese scholar Deng Qingbo. The US can only be expected to continue using China as a bogeyman even after the presidential election. While he is confident that China will be able to handle containment measures thrown at it deftly, he warns that it needs to guard against being increasingly withdrawn from the world as it nurses its bruises from its battles with the US. Failing to do so would only mean the US has succeeded in thwarting its goal of greater reform and opening up.

Hong Kong-based commentator Zheng Hao notes the growing pressure of possible war exerted by the US on China, and suggests that Article 9 of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship urging “contacts and consultations” might be a useful way to prevent war.

As China takes pole position in the international constellation of countries, Pang Ruizhi argues that the reality China faces in the new decade is not so much a rising bipolarity of global influence as some posit, but an uneasy multipolarity in which it must manage its relations with countries within its geopolitical region and beyond wisely. Only then can it reap the utmost benefits and continue on its path of progress.

In his writings, Norwegian academic Johan Galtung predicted the fall of the US empire in 2020. At this mid point of the year, Deng Xize takes stock and holds fast to his earlier opposition to Galtung’s hypothesis, saying that the US empire is not going anywhere just yet — there is simply no other country that can take on a dominant role in its place.