Opinion | How China is relying on Russia to achieve ‘strategic stability’ with the US
- Mathieu Duchâtel writes that a shared ambition to change the international order and a concern for the nuclear balance of power with the US are helping China get what it needs from Russia
Could Russia undermine its own nuclear superiority vis-à-vis China to help strengthen the Chinese nuclear deterrent against the United States?
This is exactly what Russian President Vladimir Putin implied at the Valdai discussion club last week, when he declared:
“I am probably not revealing a big secret here, but it will transpire sooner or later anyway: we are now helping our Chinese partners create a missile attack warning system. This is very important and will drastically increase China’s defence capability. Only the United States and Russia have such a system now.”
Early-warning missile attack systems rely on long-range ground-based radars and space-based assets to detect missile launches and predict their trajectory. They can support missile defence, but remain a passive system without offensive capabilities.
Strategic stability, a cold war arms control concept, is at the centre of China’s world view
Some Russian analysts have suggested that the support provided to China could centre on radars rather than space, and possibly include the sophisticated control systems that prevent radars from being jammed or taken control of by external forces.