GENERAL MARK MILLEY
I wouldn’t say that it is—yet. It may yet develop into that. But we’ve seen some economic assistance; not strong in terms of the military piece of this. Whatever exercises they do are small, relatively inconsequential. I mean, they’re not without consequence, but they’re not huge military exercises together. In terms of military support and lethal support to Russia, nothing really significant yet. The Russians have asked, for sure; they’re asking a lot of countries for ammunition and so on. But there is a relationship, military relationship, with Iran and Russia, for example—that’s not good.
But with China it’s been very, very modest. And President Xi, I would argue that he—very, very tough guy, hard guy, consummate realist. Very ruthless, Chinese Communist Party, very ruthless; but they’re very realist in the sense that they are keenly aware of cost, benefit, and risk, and they too do not want outright armed conflict with the United States. They recognize—the Chinese do—how powerful the United States is. Despite what people may say out there, the Chinese are fully aware of how powerful the United States is. And so they’re not looking for that kind of armed conflict either. They want to achieve their national objectives, but they want to actually do it without armed conflict.
So we’ll see where that goes, but we’re not seeing yet a full-fledged, really cemented, long-lasting, resilient geopolitical alliance between China and Russia. Could that happen in the future? It could, and we need to be wary of that, and we need to do what we can to make sure that doesn’t happen.
A Conversation With General Mark Milley
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They don’t support Russia because China, at its core, fears the United States.