Emergence of an ‘anti-Western alliance’ raises questions about a new axis of power

The potential threat arising from an “anti-Western alliance” is reaching unsettling levels, according to a top security expert — with analysts warning Washington and its allies should not underestimate the significance of warming relations between China, North Korea, India and Russia.

Speaking to CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti forum in Cernobbio, Italy on Friday, Wolfgang Ischinger, president of the Munich Security Conference Foundation Council, labeled a recent convening of world leaders in China “worrisome.”

Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted more than two dozen foreign leaders at a military parade in Beijing. Among them was North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Xi was also pictured laughing with Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in China.

“I’m worried about these pictures,” Ischinger told CNBC. “We know that there is not total harmony between India and China … but the world is moving in the wrong direction here.”

Ischinger holds a number of foreign policy-focused posts, including positions at the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., and was formerly the German ambassador to the United States.

He told CNBC that concern had shifted away from the rise of authoritarian regimes and the decline of democracies toward worrying about the extent to which totalitarian leaders were willing to join forces.

“I think we need to accept the fact that there is at least the potential for a kind of anti-Western alliance that’s going to be built to create some kind of a different global order — not the one that we like, one that’s more built on power, on military strength, on repressive regimes,” Ischinger said.

“That’s not the kind of scenario that I think is in our interest. So, I think these pictures from China are worrisome.”

On Monday, China, India and Russia reconvened at a virtual summit for BRICS nations — the bloc that is also comprised of Brazil and South Africa, which has drawn scorn from U.S. President Donald Trump over alleged “anti-American policies.”

During the BRICS summit, delegates for each nation took swipes at the White House’s tariffs regime and spoke of ways to deepen trade ties within the alliance.

In an article published on Monday by Seong-Hyon Lee, a senior fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations and an associate-in-research at the Harvard University Asia Centre, warned that those who dismissed these strengthening bonds due to a lack of formal alliance between Beijing, North Korea and Russia “are missing the substance of a deeply functional partnership.”

“The summit and parade [last week] were the public manifestation of a profound shift in China’s strategic posture: a deep ‘psychological decoupling’ from the West,” he said. “Beijing has concluded that strategic reconciliation with Washington is no longer a viable goal and is now actively pursuing a new world order.”

Lee labeled the “triumvirate” comprised of Xi, Putin and Kim “the hard-power nucleus of this new posture.”

“The most dangerous mistake Washington and its allies could make is to misdiagnose the nature of this challenge,” he said. “To fixate on the lack of a formal alliance is to prepare for the last war. The threat is … a fluid, adaptable network that operates in the seams of international law, leveraging ambiguity and plausible deniability.”

However, Evgeny Roshchin, a visiting scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said he was doubtful the alliance could ever go much further than its current form.

“The SCO summit is not, and likely will never become, a traditional military alliance,” Roshchin said of the events last week in China.

He told CNBC in an email that concerns about ties between the countries were “well founded,” particularly where Russia is involved, as continued trade with Moscow was underpinning Russia’s wartime economy.

But Roshchin noted that Beijing had not committed to providing military support to Russia, and both China and India had voiced unease with Russia’s nuclear rhetoric.

“What the summit revealed was less a cohesive bloc than a gathering of states with distinct ambitions, capable of aligning tactically in certain domains but lacking the unified commitment one would expect under a NATO-style Article 5 framework,” he said.

“China … does not appear intent on forging such unity. Rather than building political solidarity or a shared values-based alliance, it promotes flexible, multi-level engagement—encouraging cooperation where interests converge and allowing space for disengagement elsewhere.”

Roschchin did concede, though, that China was looking at these alliances as part of a long-term strategy, in which it could establish a new “pole” to help advance its interests at multinational platforms like the United Nations.

“It is no coincidence that President Xi consistently expresses strong support for the UN,” he said. “The influence of this emerging pole could translate into broader backing for Chinese positions in global governance.”