How Trump and Harris Would Handle the China-Russia ‘Axis’

In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping reaffirmed the two countries’ “no limit” partnership in creating a new “world order that reflects multipolar realities,” as opposed to the post-World War II unipolar order in which the United States is the only superpower.

China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal is also changing the balance of the U.S.-Russia-China triangle. By the 2030s, the United States will need to deter two major nuclear powers for the first time, the White House has warned.

The emerging alliance among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea has been described by some scholars as a new “axis” of “evil,“ ”autocrats,“ ”chaos,“ or ”losers.”

Experts told The Epoch Times that the next U.S. administration will most likely head in the same direction regardless of which major candidate is elected, but the tactics will differ.

China

In terms of China policy, there was a great deal of continuity during the past two U.S. administrations.

As Beijing narrowed its economic, military, diplomatic, and technological power gap with the United States, the Biden-Harris administration said China is the only competitor that is increasingly capable of reshaping the international order.

Biden refrained from evoking Cold War terms, telling reporters last year that he doesn’t want to contain China.

Harris has promised to ensure the United States will beat China in “the competition for the 21st century.” She believes in “de-risking” instead of a more comprehensive separation of Chinese and U.S. economies—described as “decoupling”—which was floated by Trump and advocated by a number of his senior advisors.

Meanwhile, Trump indicated he will launch a more aggressive trade war with China, and his platform vowed to strip China of its permanent normal trade relations status, which grants the country free trade benefits with the United States.

Lee Che-Chuan, research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense, said there’s no consensus among scholars on which U.S. candidate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may prefer.

“Some believe Beijing may prefer Harris, who’s less experienced and could turn out to be more dovish towards China than Biden, but others believe China may be partial to Trump’s transactional approach and isolationist tendency, which allow room for negotiations and trade-offs,” Lee told The Epoch Times.

Su Tzu-yun, director of the think tank’s Division of Defense Strategy and Resources, told The Epoch Times that Trump’s unpredictability makes him harder for Beijing to handle.

However, despite their differences, neither Trump nor Harris is likely to be soft on China, they said.

Russia

The same goes for the Kremlin, according to Thomas Graham, distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and senior director for Russian affairs in former President George W. Bush’s National Security Council, who said neither candidate is considered “ideal” in Moscow.

According to his running mate JD Vance and advisors Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, the potential cease-fire will likely involve a demilitarized zone consisting of the territories Ukraine lost during the war and a promise that Ukraine won’t join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) any time soon.

Ukraine has lost tens of thousands of lives in the conflict and a fifth of its territory. Without a military victory, it would be unable to recover the Donbas, Crimea, or the swathe of territory between Melitopol and Kherson.

Russia still tops Ukraine in troop numbers, ammunition, and artillery shells, drones, and missiles.

The Ukrainian president has said his country’s goal is the full restoration of its territorial sovereignty, meaning control of all land annexed by Russia since 2014, but many analysts do not believe it’s a realistic goal.

Graham said he believes the United States should focus on enabling “the emergence of a strong, democratic, and sovereign, independent Ukraine that is slowly but steadily integrating into the Euro, Atlantic community.”

“The issue of territory is not insignificant, but it’s secondary. So Ukraine can move and do all those things, even if it doesn’t regain control of the Donbas region, for example.”

Asked whether China will be emboldened to invade Taiwan if Russia is allowed to gain territory by force, experts said that while the outcome may send a signal, what the United States does in the Indo-Pacific region is a more significant factor that Beijing will take into account.

Another difference between Ukraine and Taiwan is the latter does not share a land border with mainland China, making the invasion of Taiwan a “difficult and highly risky” move, Lee said.

The Axis

China has had a turbulent relationship with its northern neighbor for the past 300 years.

The relationship has warmed up for the past three decades after the end of the Sino-Soviet Split and the settling of territorial disputes at the beginning of the century.

Now, China is Russia’s largest trading partner and a key lifeline for Russia’s economy since Europe turned away Russia’s oil and gas after the war began.

In 2023, China accounted for one-third of Russia’s international trade. Russia has also increased its imports of Chinese industrial equipment and consumer goods as China’s Western trade partners diversified their supply chains.

Chinese companies have been accused of selling weapons components to Russia. According to Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, around 60 percent of foreign-made parts in Russian weapons found in Ukraine originated from China.

Graham said the reason for Beijing and Moscow’s alliance is a combination of “good strategic reasons,” including their complementary economies and views toward the United States, and U.S. policies over the past decade that “tend to confirm them in their opposition to the United States and draw them closer together on the global stage.”

Lee said it’s currently a highly unlikely scenario for the United States to work with Russia to contain China, given the ongoing war on the European continent and the animosity between Russia and the United States.

Pointing to Trump’s previous attempt to cooperate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Szu said isolating the CCP does appear to be Trump’s preferred strategy, but it’s too early to tell what his official policy will be.

He said that there are already some cracks in the China-Russia alliance, including the imbalance of power between the two, North Korea’s closer tie with Russia, and China’s dependence on U.S. and European markets.

Xin Ning and Chris Summers contributed to this report.