NEW YORK, September 5. /TASS/. The stage is now set for Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea to jointly challenge the US-led world order and accelerate the decline of US influence worldwide, according to an article in The New York Times by Richard Fontaine, former international policy adviser to Senator John McCain, and Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior US intelligence officer, who is an expert on Russian affairs.
The authors describe the cooperation between the four countries as an "axis" whose influence on global processes is now gaining momentum. "Its members sense an opportunity. The [US President Donald] Trump administration is riling America’s longtime allies and partners, closing off access to its market, withdrawing humanitarian aid and development assistance, ceasing international broadcasting and democracy support, and explicitly declining to play its longtime global leadership role. For Mr. Xi [Jinping of China], [President] Vladimir Putin of Russia and others, there may never be a better moment to challenge the US-led global system and hasten American retrenchment," the experts believe.
In their view, at the recent military parade in Beijing, Xi, along with the leaders of Russia, Iran and North Korea "was signaling to the world that a viable alternative to US leadership exists" and that China, in alignment "with these other states, could upend the existing international order and resist the current system’s chief architect, the United States."
According to the article, despite their differences on some issues, the four countries "see a common adversary in the United States," so they are enhancing military cooperation and economic ties in order to "improve their ability to bypass US and allied sanctions and export controls while offering third countries alternatives to dependence on America’s market, banks and currency."
The authors argue that the desire to change the current world order stems from the belief held by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea that their power entitles them to the "freedom of action they deserve."