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As NATO members gathered this week in Washington to celebrate an alliance milestone, troops from two of Russia's closest partners, China and Belarus, began a joint exercise to rehearse invasions. "This week, NATO is congratulating itself for 75 years of cooperation, while China is previewing the next world war—in Europe," China military analyst Richard Fisher told me.
The 11-day drill, beginning Monday and dubbed "Eagle Assault 2024," was billed as "anti-terrorist exercises," but the description provided by the Belarusian defense ministry suggested that the two countries were practicing movements by large formations. "Servicemen from both countries will work on issues of night landing, overcoming water obstacles, and conducting operations in populated areas," Belarus announced.
The exercise is taking place at the Brestski training ground, less than two miles from the border with NATO member Poland—and only 17 miles from Ukraine.
So will we see Chinese troops fighting alongside Russia's, in Ukraine or elsewhere?
At the moment, that's unlikely. "Despite public rhetoric from Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, there is no love lost between the two leaders," Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association, told me this week. "The military presence of the People's Republic of China in Belarus is annoying to Moscow and is seen as giving Belarus a loosening of its dependence on Russia."
Yet at the same time, the exercise with Belarus affords China advantages. Copley, also editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, points out that the event affords an opportunity to learn "from proximity to the Ukraine battlefield lessons it can use against Taiwan."
For instance, the transport of troops from China's Northern Theater Command to Belarus on Chinese air force Y-20 heavy strategic transport aircraft gives the People's Liberation Army invaluable experience that could be applied in a cross-strait invasion.
Yet there are broader concerns for America and its NATO partners. Fisher, affiliated with the Maryland-based International Assessment and Strategy Center, writes in Geostrategy-Direct that the ongoing exercise "is an important signal as it indicates China's willingness to assist potential active Belarus participation in Russia's war against Ukraine, or at least signals a deterrent to those who might respond to such a move by Belarus."
Belarus is effectively a belligerent in the Ukraine war. At the beginning of the conflict in February 2022, President Alexander Lukashenko permitted Russia to use his territory to launch an attack on Ukraine's capital of Kyiv. Furthermore, Putin, demonstrating closeness to Belarus, transferred nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to that country by the end of 2022. Russia last year shipped tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, according to Lukashenko.
There are, as Copley correctly points out, tensions among Russia and its partners, yet perhaps the most ominous trend of this decade has been the growing coordination of Russian and Chinese policies. Beijing and Moscow famously issued their "no-limits" declaration of February 4, 2020—just 20 days before the invasion of Ukraine—and have cemented with it, among other things, China's extensive support for Putin's war effort.
As NATO's Washington Summit Declaration on the 10th of this month stated, China "has become a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine." The Atlantic Alliance is in fact correct: China since the beginning of the conflict has provided everything to Russia but troops.
North Korea, China's only formal military ally, might do just that by sending combat engineers to aid Russian forces in Ukraine, as recent reports suggest. Moscow and Pyongyang last month signed a "Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership," which apparently includes a mutual-defense clause.
Although analysts disagree about the extent of China's influence over North Korea, the Kim regime is heavily dependent on Chinese aid, now more than it has been since the mid-1990s. It is unlikely, therefore, that Pyongyang could, over Beijing's objections, sign a pact with Moscow or send troops to a battle in Europe.
And China could send troops as well if the situation were to demand it. Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping's hero, did exactly that in 1950 when North Korea's army was on the edge of defeat by U.N. forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. Mao completely surprised the U.S. by sending "volunteers" into battle and succeeded in retaking almost all the territory that the North's Kim Il Sung had lost.
If Vladimir Putin's forces were facing certain defeat in Ukraine—a distinct possibility—Xi might do the same as Mao and send troops to join the war.
For all the tensions in the Beijing-Moscow relationship, Xi apparently believes he cannot let Russia fail. After all, Putin is his partner in taking down the Western-led order.
Xi sees Putin as indispensable to his expansive plans, in large measure because the Russian leader is bold enough to do the things that China believes must be done. The Chinese love the fact that someone else is taking the heat for them. That's why Xi Jinping says that he and Putin are now in control of events. "Change is coming that hasn't happened in 100 years," the Chinese leader declared in March of last year to Putin after their 40th in-person chat. "And we are driving this change together."
Everyone assumes the China threat is in Asia. Now, it is also in Europe.
As Fisher put it, "NATO and the United States need to prepare for a future in which there is a large scale Chinese intervention in Russia-led and China-supported wars in Europe."
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and China Is Going to War. Follow him on X @GordonGChang.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
