After a recent summit between new partners China and Russia, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an odd, one-sentence communique: “There can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be fought.”
No one would disagree, even though several officials of both hypocritical governments have previously threatened their neighbors with nuclear attacks.
But still, why did the two feel the need to issue such a terse statement—and why now?
Rarely has the global rhetoric of mass annihilation reached such a crescendo as the present, as existential wars rage in Ukraine and Gaza.
In particular, Putin at least believes that he is finally winning the Russia-Ukraine war. Xi seems to assume that conventional ascendant Chinese military power in the South China Sea has finally made the absorption of Taiwan practicable.
They both believe that the only…
