Originally published at Project-Syndicate | Sep 27th, 2024
China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia do not have a formal alliance committed to defending one another. But they have formed an alignment driven by shared antipathy toward the existing US-led world order, and there is no simple way for the United States and its allies to respond.
NEW YORK – The Gang of Four was the name given to four senior Chinese officials closely associated with some of the Cultural Revolution’s most radical features. They lost out in the power struggle that followed Mao Zedong’s death, after which they were arrested, convicted of various crimes, and imprisoned.
Fifty years later, a new Gang of Four has emerged: China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. This grouping is not a formal alliance committed to defending one another. But it is an alignment driven by shared antipathy toward the existing US-led world order and features mutual exchanges of military, economic, and political support.
This Gang of Four seeks to prevent the spread of Western liberalism domestically, which they see (correctly) as a threat to their hold on power and to the authoritarian political systems they head. They also oppose US leadership abroad, including the norms the United States and its partners embrace, above all the prohibition on acquiring territory by the threat or use of force.
The gang’s mutual support takes several forms. On the eve of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, China signed an agreement with Russia declaring that their mutual friendship had “no limits,” while Russia expressed support for China’s position vis-à-vis Taiwan. Since then, China has echoed Russian talking points about the war in Ukraine, blaming NATO for it, and amplifying Russian misinformation.
In the economic realm, China has opposed war-related sanctions against Russia, is the world’s largest importer of Iranian oil, and has long subsidized North Korea. Militarily, Iran has provided missiles and drones to Russia, North Korea has provided artillery shells, and China seems to have provided dual-use technologies and industrial inputs with military applications that the US and its allies have tried to keep out of Russia’s hands. Russia has reportedly reciprocated by assisting these countries in improving their nuclear, missile, or submarine programs, and by sharing intelligence about Western weapons systems gleaned from its war with Ukraine.
Unfortunately, no single or simple policy will suffice to counter this alignment. There is no diplomatic opportunity to exploit divisions between them, in contrast to the early 1970s, when the US leveraged Sino-Soviet tensions to draw China toward the West. Further complicating matters, China is fundamentally different from the other three. It is integrated into the global economy and a major trading partner for many countries in the Western security orbit. Efforts to isolate China economically or to use trade and investment to shape its behavior will have limited impact.
China also stands alone among the four in seeking not to overturn the existing international order so much as to bend it toward its foreign-policy goals. Iran, North Korea, and Russia are far less integrated into the global economy, though they have one another as a source of imports and markets, and Iran and Russia have other trade partners. India remains a major purchaser of Russian energy and arms. Dozens of so-called Global South countries have refused to condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine or support sanctions against Russia.
North Korea is the most isolated of the four, but its vulnerability to sanctions is limited by China’s interest in preventing it from collapsing, fearing instability on its border and a united Korea tied to the West. Russia, given its reliance on North Korean artillery, will also likely provide Kim Jong-un’s regime with greater assistance.
To confront this challenge, the US, in coordination with South Korea, could explore relaxing sanctions in exchange for steps by North Korea to limit the scale of its nuclear and missile programs. Close ties between the US and South Korea should work to discourage North Korean aggression.
Russia, for its part, must not prevail over Ukraine. This requires maintaining long-term military support for Ukraine while extending security assurances and European Union membership, all of which would signal to Vladimir Putin that he is wrong to think that he can outlast the West. This would not bring peace, but it could set the stage for diplomacy that ends the fighting and preserves Ukraine’s independence. Standing up for Ukraine also demonstrates to China that it should not expect a free hand with Taiwan.
In the case of Iran, the long-term priority must be to ensure – through diplomacy or the threat or use of military force – that it does not develop nuclear weapons. The immediate goals should be to rein in Tehran’s support for its havoc-wreaking proxies across the Middle East (admittedly easier said than done) and to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a regional conflict (which Iran may not want, given its domestic challenges).
China presents the most complicated challenge of the four, owing to its strategic ambitions and willingness to use its economic heft and military might to achieve its objectives. Dialogue, deterrence, and, at times, reassurance will be required to influence Chinese behavior and leverage its interest in maintaining access to technology and markets.
The US and its partners need to assume this new alignment will persist and potentially deepen. That should not preclude diplomatic contacts, which are a tool, not a favor. Diplomacy reinforces the message that the US goal is policy change, not regime change, if only because regime change is beyond reach and could encourage even less restraint among the Gang of Four.
US and Western influence will also reflect US and Western strength. This implies the need to repair defense industrial bases across the US, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific, and to enhance and integrate military capabilities to account for the possibility of a multi-region conflict. Moreover, the West must create supply chains for critical goods that do not rely on these four countries.
The US also must modernize its nuclear arsenal in response to China’s massive nuclear buildup (and North Korea’s relentless one) and the possibility that the New START agreement with Russia will expire in 2026. At home, the US ought to reduce its soaring debt (now higher than its GDP) and prevent its political divisions from interfering with its international commitments.
But the principal tool for countering the Gang of Four is an effective counter-alignment. Fortunately, it already exists in the web of alliances and partnerships in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. The challenge for the US is to provide the presence and predictability that such relationships require. For America’s partners, the challenge is to contribute more toward common defense and to coordinate policy to meet shared challenges – including those posed by the Gang of Four.
Richard Haass: President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior counselor at Centerview Partners, previously served as Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department (2001-03), and was President George W. Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland and Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan. He is the author of The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens (Penguin Press, 2023) and the weekly Substack newsletter Home & Away.
