I've seen the Chinese-Russian connection and the tag team they played in the Human Rights Council, certainly in areas of nuclear arms control, and from a greater distance, the Security Council deliberations, particularly with respect to North Korea. It has been fascinating there to see their tactical use of the veto and watering down of what should be relatively straightforward Security Council resolutions, including on all the sanctions issues.
In the context of what some people, including me, call the “new great game”, I believe it is in Chinese and Russian self-interest to keep the United States geopolitically off-balance. So you have Chinese warships on exercise with Russian warships in the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. You had Russian ships with Chinese ships in the Pacific. This is the strong messaging and you see it played out in the diplomatic world. You see it in practice in the military world. The first visit by the new Chinese defence minister was to Moscow and he said very openly that they were there to work with Russia in their interests. That certainly gets played out in so many different ways.
There are times, I believe, in the context of, say, anti-terrorism, that it's in the interest of everybody to play and co-operate together, but that's in a very short-term way as opposed to the long-term way that these two countries are playing.