This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

Xi's power play – What happens if China wins over Russia and India?

Oct 2, 2025
Elizabeth Wishnick, a senior research scholar at Columbia University specializing in Chinese-Russian relations, and Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at Brookings focusing on India-China-US dynamics, dive into the evolving power plays in global politics. They discuss China's expanding role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and how its partnership with Russia might reshape the geopolitical landscape. Madan highlights India's strategies to stabilize ties with China post-border tensions, while both experts caution about the implications of US unpredictability on international alliances.
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INSIGHT

Xi's Global Leadership Push

  • Xi seeks to fill a global leadership vacuum created by a retreating US and present China as leader of the Global South.
  • The Tianjin/SCO diplomacy aimed to show breadth of partners and bolster Beijing's world-leader image.
INSIGHT

Strategic Ambiguity Between Beijing And Moscow

  • China and Russia deepened cooperation after 2008 and especially since 2022, but avoid formal alliance language for strategic ambiguity.
  • Ambiguity serves deterrent value and keeps other states guessing about their exact limits of cooperation.
INSIGHT

Why China May Tolerate The Ukraine War

  • China benefits from a limited, ambiguous partnership with Russia that secures energy and Arctic routes without full entanglement.
  • Beijing may prefer Russia tied down in Ukraine rather than a decisive outcome that shifts global focus to China.
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