Putin and Xi’s Strategic Relationship: How Long Can It Last?
(Dean Cheng, July 5, 2024)
About the Speaker
Dean Cheng is a senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
He joined USIP from The Heritage Foundation, where he spent over a decade as a senior research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs. He has written extensively on China’s military doctrine, the technological implications of its space program and “dual use” issues associated with China’s industrial and scientific infrastructure.
Before joining The Heritage Foundation, Cheng worked at Science Applications International Corporation and the China studies division of the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research institute. He also served as an analyst for the international security and space program at the Office of Technology Assessment, a congressional agency, with particular expertise on China’s defense-industrial complex.
Cheng has testified many times before U.S. House and Senate committees on various aspects of Chinese security. He has appeared on public affairs shows such as “John McLaughlin’s One on One” and C-SPAN, as well as programs on NPR, CNN International, BBC World Service and International Television News.
He has been interviewed by or provided commentary for publications such as Time magazine, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, Jane’s Defence Weekly, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo, and Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, and is the author of “Cyber Dragon,” an examination of Chinese information and cyber activities. He has also spoken at the National Space Symposium, National Defense University, the Air Force Academy, MIT and the Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies.
Transcript
Robert R. Reilly:
Hello and welcome to the Westminster Institute. I am Robert Reilly, its director. Today we are delighted to welcome back to the Westminster Institute Dean Cheng, one of the foremost scholars on China. Now, the first show we did with Dean Cheng was three years ago, and I will give you the topic of it: How China Views the World and the Return of the Middle Kingdom. It is an excellent presentation, and I invite you to go into the Westminster Institute’s archives where that excellent presentation is still posted.
Now, about two years ago we did a show with Dean, The Chinese-Russian Relationship: It’s Complicated, and in a way we will be touching on some of the same subjects that Dean covered there, but within the past two years a number of things have happened. And what we are trying to concentrate on today is what is the foundation of this growing relationship between President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia. In terms of their long-term strategic interests, where do those strategic interests intersect, and how large is that intersection, and what might unravel this bromance, because those strategic interests cannot be aligned?
And Dean is so familiar with Chinese history that he can tell us in past history when it did not align, and the relationship was very fractious. Now, I will just refresh your memories as to who Dean Cheng is. Now he is a senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Before that, Dean spent more than a decade at the Heritage Foundation where he was a senior fellow in China studies, so for 10 years [he was] at the Heritage Foundation. Before that, Mr. Cheng worked at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and the China studies division of the Center of Naval Analysis, a federally funded research institute. And he also served as an analyst of the international security and space program at the Office of Technology Assessment, a congressionally charted agency with particular expertise on the Chinese defense industry.
He is fluent in Mandarin and uses Mandarin language materials regularly, goes to the sources, and writes from them. And he was a senior analyst with the China studies division at the Center for Naval Analysis from 2001 to 2009. Before joining CNA, he was a senior analyst with the science applications international corporation. I mentioned that before. He has also served as an analyst with the U.S. Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment in the international security and space division where he studied Chinese defense industrial complex he has written many articles for the premier magazines dealing with foreign policy and others. Dean has made many television appearances and especially important Dean has been a witness in Congressional hearings quite frequently and that’s both in front of Senate committees and in front of House of Representative committees he has also written many articles many book chapters. He has a book titled Cyber Dragon: Inside China’s information Warfare and Cyber Operations.
Well, welcome, Dean. Today we are going to discuss the topic I alluded to earlier. What are the foundations of what seems to be a growing [relationship]? How solid are those foundations in terms of each country’s strategic interest on which they can rely for some period of time until all such arrangements unravel because they no longer align?