In the blizzard of brave but possibly doomed efforts to predict what Donald Trump will do next, two stand out. One says that in this new age of strongman politics, Trump will settle for a grand bargain that abandons the Pacific to China and Europe to Russia while the United States revives the Monroe Doctrine and runs the Americas as its fiefdom. The second proposition is that he is cosying up to Russia in preparation for a strategic coup de théâtre—a “reverse Kissinger”—in which the US detaches Russia from its neighbour and close ally China, leaving Beijing isolated and weakened. This, its proponents argue, is the genius of Trump, who recognises that China is a bigger threat than Russia.
Leaving the claim of genius to history to judge, it is worth considering how likely a reverse Kissinger might be. The term refers to the secret visit that Henry Kissinger paid to China in July 1971, at the beginning of the diplomatic rapprochement that ended years of hostility between the US and China, and which paved the way for President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to Beijing the following year. Today’s scenario envisages restoring relations not with Beijing but with Moscow. But there are some other important differences between then and now.
Mao Zedong and the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev never had a warm relationship, but it reached a new low in August 1960 when 1,390 Soviet technicians who had been happily working in China were abruptly withdrawn. Among the projects left unfinished was the construction of the first bridge across the Yangtze River at Nanjing. The Chinese eventually completed it, and the bridge was celebrated for years as national symbol or self-reliance in the face of hostile Soviet revisionism.
So when Kissinger began his tentative diplomatic outreach to Beijing, the Chinese dispute with Moscow was already more than a decade old and had become increasingly bitter. Each side had deployed massive forces on their mutual 3,000-mile border. On the Soviet side, there were approximately 650,000 troops—about a quarter of all Soviet ground forces—along with 1,200 aircraft and artillery and armoured units. On the Chinese side, citizens were put to digging tunnels to shelter from the expected air raids, while half a million People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops were sent to face the Soviet forces.
The two sides skirmished from time to time along the Ussuri River, where the countries border one another in the east. Mao was said to have boasted that China would survive a nuclear exchange with Moscow because it could afford to lose 300m citizens. Fortunately, his theory was never put to the test. For all these reasons, despite his profound ideological differences with the US, Mao had much to gain from normalising relations with Washington. Over time, tensions also gradually eased with Moscow.
The differences today could hardly be more stark. Beijing sees the US as a hostile state bent on thwarting China’s legitimate rise as a rival. On 4th February 2022, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping signed an agreement that proclaimed unlimited friendship, based on a shared view of a changing world and the opportunities it presented. Two weeks later Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, China has given Russia diplomatic and political cover, as well as economic support and technology that can be used for both military and civilian purposes. Trade has boomed: China has stepped up its imports of Russian oil and gas, and exports of everything from industrial machinery to cars and drones. In contrast, the US would not be disposed to buy Russian oil or gas, even in the event of Putin turning to Washington and away from Beijing. Meanwhile, Putin has a lot at stake with China: trade between the countries is worth around $245bn a year. In 2024, the value of goods traded between Russia and the US was just $3.5bn.
In the 1960s China was the junior partner, dependent on big brother Russia, but today the situation is reversed. Russia depends on China for a range of support that it is hard to imagine Trump, who is famously transactional, being willing to take on. Russia is also already chronically short of manpower for its war in Ukraine. It is vanishingly unlikely to be able to find 50 divisions to deploy on the Chinese border, as it was obliged to do in the Sino-Soviet dispute.
Besides, what would Putin have to gain that Trump has not already given him—or would give him, if invited to? Trump has already seriously undermined the allied effort in Ukraine and continues to threaten the viability and credibility of Nato. Last weekend, the New York Times reported that the US secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, has ordered the Pentagon to cease offensive cyber operations against Russia, despite a continuing stream of Russian cyberattacks against the US and Europe.
For Moscow, Trump is already the gift that keeps on giving. For a longer-term strategy, however, Putin is likely to prefer his more consistent and stable relationship with Beijing, and to continue to pursue their shared ambition to cut the US down to size.
For the foreseeable future, Henry Kissinger can rest in peace.
