An aura of invincibility has accompanied China’s meteoric rise to becoming the world’s second-largest economy. Recent revelations, however, paint a different picture, revealing a troubled economic landscape that misrepresents the nation’s apparent might. Beneath the surface, China’s economy resembles a paper tiger ? a facade of strength hiding vulnerabilities that threaten to undermine its global standing. One glaring indicator of this paper tiger phenomenon is the Chinese government’s attempt to control the narrative surrounding its economy. Reports reveal that local analysts and foreign investment banks are being directed not to comment negatively on the economy. This orchestrated effort to suppress criticism indicates that the authorities are aware of the economic challenges beneath the surface. The cracks in China’s economic armor are becoming more evident each day. Exports, once a formidable engine of growth, are now slumping. Producer prices have relentlessly declined over the past nine months, while consumer prices are flirting dangerously with deflation. Adding to the gloom, youth unemployment has surged to a startling rate of over 21%, doubling in the last four years alone. China’s National Bureau of Statistics has further eroded its credibility by ceasing to collect data on youth unemployment, a problem that has persisted for nearly a decade. Despite international media highlighting this issue, the Chinese government’s reluctance to acknowledge it only underscores their desperate attempts to maintain an image of stability. “Zero COVID” measures have taken a toll on China’s economy and are partly to blame for the nation’s stubbornly high youth unemployment.

In July 2007, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors arrived and confirmed the shutdown of the five nuclear sites in Yongbyon, applying seals and other surveillance and monitoring equipment. This all ended abruptly when on April 16, 2009, all IAEA inspectors were told to leave North Korea. North Korea made this decision when the IAEA inspectors had asked to visit undeclared suspect nuclear sites in North Korea, a routine request that North Korea should have approved if it had nothing to hide. But apparently, North Korea did have something to hide: its highly enriched uranium sites for nuclear weapons. That was the end of the Six-Party Talks, after six years of negotiations and some progress. We all know what followed. So far in 2023, North Korea has launched three ICBMs, the latest, on July 12, was a successful launch of a Hwasong-18 solid fuel ICBM with a range of 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles). This would be an appropriate time for China to seek U.S. support to reconstitute the Six-Party Talks. China did this in 2003, at the request of the U.S., and it can do this in 2023, taking the initiative to ensure that intentional or accidental war doesn’t erupt on the Korean Peninsula. Indeed, China is North Korea’s only ally, and North Korea relies on China for its economic survival. Getting North Korea to return to these talks while halting all missile launches, nuclear tests, would be a significant contribution to lowering tension on the Korean Peninsula. It would also demonstrate to the international community that the U.S. and China can and will collaborate on issues for the common good.

The 2003-2009 Six-Party Talks are cited by the Chinese participants as a model for resolving the nuclear issue with North Korea. China should again play a leading role in getting North Korea to agree to complete and verifiable denuclearization, despite North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s stated goal of building more nuclear weapons. China hosted, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi was the first chairperson for the Six-Party Talks negotiations with North Korea, with the U.S., South Korea, North Korea, China, Japan and Russia all participating. After two years of working group meetings and plenary sessions, on Sept. 19, 2005, at the fourth plenary session, a Joint Statement was signed that stated, among other things, that “the six parties unanimously reaffirmed that the goal of the Six-Party Talks is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner and the DPRK (North Korea) committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and IAEA safeguards.” Despite this Joint Statement, in July 2006, North Korea launched ballistic missiles. On Oct. 9, 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, all ostensibly because the U.S. sanctioned a Macao bank, Banco Delta Asia, as a primary money laundering concern working with North Korea. When North Korea eventually had access to the $25 million that the bank initially froze, in February 2007, North Korea agreed to shut down and seal, for eventual abandonment, the Yongbyon nuclear complex.

The Russian president had been warned by the Russian security services at least two or three days ahead of time that Prigozhin was preparing a possible rebellion, according to intelligence assessments shared with The Washington Post. “Putin had time to take the decision to liquidate [the rebellion] and arrest the organizers,” said one of the European security officials who were interviewed by the Post. “Then when it [the rebellion] began to happen, there was paralysis on all levels. … There was absolute dismay and confusion. For a long time, they did not know how to react.” This madcap moment lasted at least 36 hours. If it is true that no one wanted to lead Russia during this chaotic period, it will go down as the strangest 36 hours in world history. Well, at least for now, Mr. Putin is back in charge of his increasingly ramshackle country, but a country that seems to be losing its war with Ukraine. Observers are beginning to speak of what type of government Mr. Putin has adopted. He is not a communist. Too many oligarchs hover around him, and they have all made too much money. Nor is he a czarist. I believe the most apt description of Mr. Putin’s rule is his crony system of government. The large number of mediocre appointees he has brought into public life is typical of his mediocrity. Just look at how mediocre his military has been. As soon as a general or an admiral distinguishes himself in battle, he is fired, or he dies mysteriously in battle. The Washington Post reported how Mr. Putin was paralyzed and indecisive from the start.

Russia’s space program has been diminished by the conflict in Ukraine, as NASA and other Western space agencies have severed their partnerships with Roscosmos, Russia’s state-owned space corporation, on rocket launches and space exploration projects. Although Russia’s technological development projects have been severely hampered by Western reactions to the Ukraine invasion, even Moscow‘s weakened space program and defense projects could still provide benefits to China. For example, the two nations have agreed to collaborate on space-based sensors for satellites to detect hypersonic and ballistic missiles. In addition, some analysts believe that Moscow is ahead of Beijing in developing and deploying space surveillance technology. Therefore, a synergistic collaboration that combines China’s technological and economic prowess with Russia’s deep experience in space missions could become a powerful alliance. Such an alliance would be detrimental to other nation-states, because Beijing, and to a lesser extent Moscow, are intent on setting the rules of space exploration. To secure these interests and objectives, among other geopolitical and geostrategic goals, China will continue its diplomatic efforts to ensure that Russia ultimately prevails in the Russia-Ukraine war, since a Ukrainian victory would likely lead to Mr. Putin’s political demise and could usher in a pro-Western Kremlin. Consequently, China will either continue to maneuver to end the war on its own self-serving negotiated terms, or to prolong the war in the hope that the ongoing conflict will continue to drain the economic, military and political resources of the democratic world.

Russia recently announced that its new intercontinental “Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle (which Moscow claims can reach a maximum speed of Mach 27), has become operational. Again, China may offer some lucrative incentives, financial or otherwise, to seek cooperation in developing such technologies for its military as well. In the past, China has been accused of copying Russian engine, aircraft and air defense systems. In the 1990s, China purchased Russia’s elite Su-27 fighter jets and S-300 missile systems. Beijing later used these as templates to develop its own J-11 fighter jet and HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles. But despite Russia’s ongoing frustration with China’s reverse engineering and technology “cloning,” Moscow is likely to downplay the issue because Russia has been globally isolated by the West since its invasion of Ukraine, and it desperately needs China’s political and economic support to mitigate the impact of Western sanctions. Russia’s new defense cooperation with China will focus on technology transfers and joint development projects in arms production. Beyond political and financial incentives, there are other reasons for Moscow to collaborate with Beijing on defense. As for Russia, it wants to attract Chinese investment in high-tech areas, especially artificial intelligence. It also hopes to gain greater access to Chinese commercial technologies through joint ventures in the defense sector, which would help Moscow further develop its defense industry. For Mr. Putin’s regime, working with the Chinese Communist Party to develop nascent technologies offers Russia an opportunity to pursue its own ambitious space program, which has suffered from Western sanctions.

China and Russia have become increasingly close. Their bilateral cooperation in developing new military and space technologies has become an important pillar of their growing partnership. The two countries are actively collaborating in the joint development of technologies in telecommunications, artificial intelligence, microelectronics, national defense and cyberspace. Bilateral cooperation in these areas is driven by China’s and Russia’s respective geopolitical and economic interests. Chinese experts in these fields seek to benefit from Russia’s strengths in developing technological resources, which are difficult for Beijing to obtain elsewhere. Against the backdrop of growing hostility between China and the United States, technological cooperation with Moscow appears to be crucial for Beijing, as Russia possesses significant technological capabilities in defense production and space exploration. Russia’s military actions in Ukraine since the invasion, and the West’s responses to them, have catalyzed growing Sino-Russian cooperation in defense technologies. Despite the poor performance of Russian military equipment in the Ukraine conflict, Russia still has the ability to produce at least some classes of high-end weapons. On the other hand, despite China’s dramatic economic rise, colossal manufacturing capacity and robust scientific research output, it still trails behind Russia in some areas of defense technology. Their defense cooperation reached a climax in October 2019, when Mr. Putin announced that Russia was actively helping China develop a missile attack early warning radar system. Such a system would greatly enhance China’s defense capabilities and would require significant technological input from Moscow.

North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un welcomed senior officials from China and Russia to celebrate Victory Day, the 70th anniversary of the armistice that halted three years of armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Since no peace treaty was ever signed, the Korean War never really ended, which makes it America’s longest war. To this day, roughly 30,000 U.S. troops remain in the South to deter the North. Over the decades that followed the armistice, American diplomats negotiated a series of deals intended to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. Time after time, the regime pocketed American concessions and cash while breaking its promises. Mr. Kim is now estimated to possess more than 50 nuclear warheads. Over the past two years, he has conducted dozens of illegal missile tests. U.S. efforts to impose sanctions on North Korea at the U.N. Security Council have been blocked by Russia and China. They insist that Mr. Kim is merely responding to the threats posed by the U.S., Japan and South Korea. That echoes their claim that the Korean War began when American “imperialist aggressors” invaded the North. In truth, Kim Il Sung attacked the South in June 1950 with permission and approval from Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Chinese dictator Mao Zedong subsequently sent “volunteers” backed by Soviet air power to support the North in the “War to Resist America and Aid Korea.” An estimated 4 million Koreans died. Nearly 40,000 American troops were killed. At least Americans now understand this history and no longer harbor illusions about North Korea.

Despite the enormous cost of Russian treasures and lives, Mr. Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping can use control of domestic media and the internet to paint a stalemate with some territorial gains as victory to domestic audiences. Mr. Xi has staked the legitimacy of his regime on asserting Beijing’s questionable territorial claims in Taiwan ? the island was colonized by Japan in the 19th century and only ruled by mainland China from 1945 to 1949. Taiwan is the linchpin of the island chain running from Japan through the Philippines and Malaysia and an irreplaceable component in the global advanced-semiconductor supply chain. Losing Taiwan would severely compromise the security of Japan and other Pacific allies and make China the preeminent power in the Indo-Pacific. It would give Beijing a chokehold on state-of-the-art chipmaking capacity, leaving Western economies at their whims. It would then be China applying export embargoes to retard the technological development and weapons production of the United States and Europe. War game analysis indicates the United States, assisted by Japan and other allies, could repel a Chinese attack but only with a great loss of ships - including one or more aircraft carriers - as well as airplanes and troops. With the United States continually bogged down by Russia in Europe, the pace of Chinese military spending would ultimately change those odds. If we can’t deliver a knockout punch to Mr. Putin and Russia’s perverted political culture now, China is left on track to deliver the fatal blow in the Pacific and take control of the global economy.

The United States is dangerously close to ceding the Pacific and global economic leadership to China by not providing Ukraine with adequate long-term security commitments and weapons to dislodge the Russian army. The pauperism of NATO policy was on full display in the run-up to the July Vilnius Summit. On the agenda were Ukrainian membership, an issue sidestepped by the United States, Germany and others even after Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk. With membership comes Article 5 protection. Ukrainian admission now would compel NATO to put troops on the ground, and that’s politically untenable for most NATO leaders. After a cessation of hostilities, the Eastern Europeans favor a detailed road map for Ukrainian membership. The United States and Germany favor softer security guarantees like those the United States affords Israel. Those could include access to more advanced weapons and continued financial assistance to acquire what’s necessary to deter another Russian invasion. The latter is hardly enough. Ukraine is not Israel. Its civilian economic infrastructure has been devastated, and it sits next to Russia with more than three times the population and its 20th-century imperial designs. An end to hostilities without Article 5 guarantees and U.S. and other NATO troops positioned in Ukraine, as they are in other Eastern European states, is an invitation to Russian President Vladimir Putin or a successor to regroup and try again - perhaps with radically different tactics.