AUSTRALIA-US/EAST ASIA RELATIONS: COVID AND CHINA CHILL, ALLIANCE ANNIVERSARY AND AFGHANISTAN

The summer of 2021 may be the best and worst time for Russia-China relations. There was much to celebrate as the two powers moved into the third decade of stable and friendly relations, symbolized by the 20th anniversary of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the "friendship treaty" (The Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation). This historical moment, however, paralleled a hasty and chaotic end to the 20-year US interlude in Afghanistan with at least two unpleasant consequences for Beijing and Moscow: a war-torn Afghanistan in their backyard with an uncertain future and worse, a US now ready to exclusively focus on the two large Eurasian powers 30 years after the end of the Cold War. As the Afghan endgame rapidly unfolded in August 2021, both sides were conducting large exercises across and around Eurasia.