The Moscow Times: Tangled Triangle of Russia, China and the U.S.
... Reveling in its victory in the Cold War and its clear military, political and economic superiority, the United States set its sights on global hegemony. This antagonized and alienated both Moscow and Beijing and created an opportunity for them to join forces once again to oppose U.S. hegemony.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks marked the beginning of the end of U.S. global domination. The U.S. fall from the stars was accelerated by its unsuccessful, taxing military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq and the deep economic crisis.
By 2009, it became obvious that the "Pax Americana" global empire was a pipe dream, and the United States -- now under the leadership of a more pragmatic and realistic President Barack Obama -- began looking for new alliances. One of the Obama administration's ideas was sharing the burden of responsibility for global security with China...
In February 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed creating a U.S.-Chinese superpower alliance... But the Chinese leadership flatly rejected Clinton's proposal. ...China has always insisted that it has no ambitions to become a hegemony and is opposed to any global domination by any superpower. ...This is why many U.S. policymakers view China as the country's largest threat.
How can the United States counter this threat? ... once again, Washington has courted Moscow to help the United States counterbalance China's growing global influence. But the United States doesn't realize that Russia has no interest in alienating China.
Eighteenth-century French philosopher Charles de Montesquieu said, "Small counties perish from external enemies, and large countries perish from internal ones." Russia has more than enough internal problems that it needs to solve without having to worry about conflicts with China. This is why ... the Russian-Chinese-U.S. triangle will remain as three separate centers for a long time to come.
