In recent years, particularly between 2024 and 2025, China has faced a significant tightening of its peripheral security and geopolitical environment, unlike anything seen since the Cold War. The major power competition in the Asia-Pacific region has become fully structured, with the security policies of the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India accelerating their outward focus. This has led to a cascading effect of external pressures on China. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) has reinforced its supply chain rules; the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral mechanism has deepened; the Philippines has reopened military bases to the U.S.; Japan has strengthened its missile counterstrike capabilities and deployed missiles in areas near Taiwan, with defense spending expected to rise; and India has rapidly integrated with the U.S. and European tech and military-industrial chains while maintaining a high-pressure stance along its border areas.
At the same time, in Central Asia, located near China's western borders, the spillover effects of the Russia-Ukraine war have forced several Central Asian countries to adjust their strategies. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have notably strengthened their supply chain ties with the EU, Japan, and the U.S., leading to a subtle restructuring of the influence balance between China and Russia. Southeast Asian countries, while maintaining strategic balance, have started to lean more toward an order led by the U.S. in areas such as semiconductors, critical minerals, and maritime security. The new security dynamics in the South China Sea have led to frequent and ongoing friction and competition. The Philippines, backed by the U.S., sees the emergence of more maritime conflicts, thus normalizing gray zone confrontations. Additionally, Thailand and Vietnam have refrained from collaborating with China on several major projects, and their actions have demonstrated growing wariness and caution toward China.
In this context, ANBOUND’s founder Kung Chan has made a strikingly bold judgment: “China’s political geography now shows that it is surrounded on all sides, i.e., east, south, west, and north. This is an encirclement that is even more complete than during the era of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. The only remaining option is integration with Russia”. This statement can be seen as a geographic re-evaluation of China's strategic space and the structural pressures in its surrounding environment.
From an academic perspective, this statement contains three implicit propositions. First, the strategic pressure China faces in its surrounding environment is no longer localized friction but a systemic restructuring of pressure, which can be described as a "China bucket" in geographic terms. Second, China’s potential strategic partners are significantly dwindling due to the reshuffling of the U.S.-EU supply chains, which places multiple constraints on its foreign strategic choices. Third, Russia emerges as the only external variable with "strategic redundancy", making it the sole viable partner that China can rely on.
While China still holds significant influence in the Global South, the global energy system, and global supply chains, its geographic environment, which is the most critical factor for its geopolitical survival, is facing an increasing structural pressure.
The first issue is the systematic tightening of China’s peripheral security environment and its structural roots.
The security pressure China has faced in recent years is not a mere accumulation of isolated events, but rather a structural chain reaction triggered by the global reconstruction of the geopolitical order. The key changes can be observed across four dimensions, namely the systematization of the Indo-Pacific military alliance network, the geopolitical spillover effects of supply chains on China, the eastward shift in the autonomous security strategies of neighboring countries, and the reshaping of the Eurasian continental order due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
First of all, the security framework in the Indo-Pacific has shifted from fragmented relationships to a "modular network". The U.S. no longer relies solely on bilateral treaties but has instead constructed a regional security system integrated through AUKUS, the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral, the U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral, the Quad, and the Indo-Pacific structures. This system is built around the core logic of "structural balance against China", which continuously reduces the neutral space available to any single country. The Philippines' more aggressive actions in the Huangyan Island, otherwise known as Scarborough Shoal, and Ren’ai Reef, or Second Thomas Shoal, are strategically significant because these locations are at the forefront of this system, enabling it to frequently create strategic friction with China under the U.S. support.
Secondly, the geopoliticalization of supply chains has further eroded China’s trade depth. U.S. industrial policies such as the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act have reinforced the trend of politicized supply chains. South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan have been positioned as key "friendshoring" hubs in the semiconductor supply chain, while Vietnam, Indonesia, and India have emerged as new destinations for labor-intensive and some mid-tier manufacturing. The geopoliticalization of supply chains is not merely an economic issue but also reflects the integration of national security and technology governance logic, significantly shrinking China’s traditional space for economic diplomacy based on mutual economic benefit.
Thirdly, the autonomous security strategies of neighboring countries are increasingly exhibiting a "soft resistance" toward China. Following border conflicts, India has fully adjusted its strategy, strengthening cooperation with the U.S. and Japan. Southeast Asia, while still seeking balance, has noticeably tightened security reviews of Chinese involvement in areas such as ports, digital governance, and semiconductor packaging. Central Asian countries, under the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, are concerned about being drawn into a new great power rivalry, prompting them to strengthen cooperation with the EU and Japan as a way to balance Russia and China. These changes form a "soft resistance" structure from China's neighboring countries, making the previously existing multi-layered strategic buffer zone even weaker.
It is noteworthy that the Russia-Ukraine war has caused spillover effects in the security environment of the Eurasian continent. While Russia has been forced to tilt toward China, this has not expanded China’s strategic space in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Instead, this has actually caused more external forces to enter the Central Asian region. For instance, the European Union has significantly strengthened its policies toward Central Asia, and Japan has begun promoting supply chain diplomacy in the region. This has introduced new competition for China in its strategic backyard.
What Kung Chan refers to as the "encirclement" should, from an academic perspective, be understood as the "highly structured regional strategic pressure", rather than in terms of military encirclement. Its essence lies in the long-term competition and cooperation across multiple dimensions, including political, technological, economic, and security. What China faces is not a singular hostile camp, but a far more complex and systemic surrounding environment.
The second issue is the structural dynamics driving China’s alignment with Russia under external pressure, along with the potential risks of coercion.
Kung Chan’s remark that "the only option for China is to integrate with Russia" reflects an unavoidable geographic structural reality. In the past few years, as China’s surrounding security and supply chain environment has rapidly tightened, the space for its strategic options in external resources and geopolitical buffers has continually shrunk. This has led to a structural increase in China’s strategic dependence on Russia. Although there are obvious differences in interests and capacity between the two countries, these limitations appear secondary in comparison to the external pressures China faces. As a result, China’s strategic alignment with Russia inevitably takes on a push from the outside inward dynamic, potentially even hiding the risk of passive coercion.
First of all, China faces rising uncertainty in its northwestern strategic buffer zone, which forces it to rely more on Russia to maintain basic stability across the Eurasian continent. Due to the aftershocks of the Russia-Ukraine war, deepened involvement by the US and EU, and new supply chain arrangements by Japan and South Korea, Central Asian countries have exhibited noticeable strategic wavering. Their security and economic cooperation with China no longer possesses the same stability as in the past. This means that China is unlikely to independently shape the order in Eurasia and must rely on Russia to prevent the Eurasian geopolitical structure from being fully reshaped by external powers. In other words, Russia's strategic resilience has become China's "indirect security outsourcing", even though this is not China’s intention.
Second, the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific military system is forming a high-pressure blockade ring, forcing China to face pressure simultaneously along the three fronts in the Northeast, East China Sea, and South China Sea. This makes Russia the only major power capable of providing a non-Western anchor in terms of military, energy, and strategic depth. As Japan, the U.S., and South Korea accelerate military integration, the Philippines active in initiating the South China Sea frictions, and India continues to exert pressure along the border, China’s periphery is experiencing multi-directional, continuous, and structured strategic squeezing. In this context, China needs a major power that is not controlled by the US to provide strategic redundancy on the northern side of the Eurasian continent to reduce its pressure in the eastern and southern directions. This transforms "aligning with Russia" from an option into a necessity. The more Russia is pushed away by the West, the greater its geopolitical value to China. However, at the same time, Russia is also able to use this situation as leverage to strengthen its bargaining power in bilateral cooperation.
Moreover, the global supply chain restructuring and high-tech shielding systems are increasingly narrowing China's external strategic maneuverability, leading to an institutionalized trend of dependence on Russia for energy, trade routes, and geopolitical support. This institutionalization could, in turn, transform into a coercive mechanism. In the energy sector, Russia is the only major power capable of providing China with stable, large-scale, and low-cost supplies of crude oil, natural gas, and strategic resources over the long term. It also offers China a portion of financial and logistical channels that help it circumvent Western sanctions. As Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia intensify pressure on China regarding key technologies and industrial chain governance, China’s options for alternative supply chains and foreign trade networks have significantly diminished, making Russia gradually shift from being a "partner" to assuming a "hub-like position". Once structural dependence is established, even if China does not wish to be constrained by Russia, Russia has the capability to leverage its strategic resources, particularly geopolitical location and political interconnectedness, to enhance its influence in bilateral relations. This is the potential "coercive mechanism".
Under the continued deterioration of the surrounding strategic environment, China’s alignment with Russia is not a matter of emotional choice but an outcome driven by geopolitical structure. Even if China is unwilling to enter into a path of attached cooperation, structural pressures may push Russia to gain unprecedented bargaining power in bilateral relations, leading China to experience varying degrees of passivity on certain regional issues, Eurasian energy supply routes, and global governance positions. This "structural coercion risk" is becoming the most critical variable that needs to be seriously assessed in future Russia-China relations.
The third issue is how China can rebuild strategic initiative in the new geopolitical landscape.
While external pressures on China are indeed increasing, the external structure is not entirely immutable. China’s options still come from its enormous economic and trade influence, some political trust from the Global South, the structural advantages of its manufacturing system, and its capacity to shape institutions in multilateral fields. The biggest issue posed by the current political geography is, in short, the limitation of China’s strategic initiative. However, this issue presents an opportunity for change, particularly with the rise of Trumpism, and even after the release of the latest U.S. National Security Strategy. Therefore, China could consider three directions for rebuilding its strategic initiative in the global geographic space.
The first direction is that China should focus on "multilevel diplomacy" to counter the "monolithic security narrative". The current Indo-Pacific order is highly militarized, and China can strengthen its external influence by leveraging economic diplomacy, green investment, cultural exchanges, and other means. For instance, China can continue advancing cooperation with ASEAN in areas such as the digital economy, cross-border payments, and green energy, in order to reshape the trust structure of non-security issues. In the European direction, China can consider opening new spaces by investing in high-end manufacturing, supply chain cooperation, and climate technology collaboration, thereby avoiding being fully embedded within the U.S.-led security framework.
Next, China should deeply integrate into the institutional cooperation networks of the Global South. From energy investments in the Middle East to infrastructure projects in Africa, from supply chains in Latin America to ports in the Indian Ocean, China has the most extensive structural presence within the Global South. By 2025, under the expanded BRICS framework, China will have an enhanced agenda-setting capacity, providing it with a strategic tool to reshape global economic rules. This institutional cooperation helps form a "global strategic buffer zone" independent of traditional Western systems, allowing China to overcome regional geopolitical constraints and expand its external space.
Finally, it is essential for China to rebuild its "irreplaceability" within technological infrastructure and industrial supply chains. This is crucial because the intensification of U.S. technological restrictions on China has exacerbated the country's challenge of achieving technological independence, but it has also accelerated China's efforts to develop a new industrial system. Over the next five to ten years, it has the potential to establish global "structural control" in areas such as energy storage materials, green energy equipment, the electric vehicle industry chain, and high-end machinery, thereby providing new strategic leverage for geopolitics.
China's strategic initiative does not stem from a single partner, but rather from its construction of a diverse, stable, and irreplaceable complex network within the global system. In an era of de-globalization, this is a highly dynamic process that requires China to seize opportunities and act in the right time.
Final analysis conclusion:
Kung Chan's judgment is one that is highly concentrated and cautionary, serving as an important "pressure diagnosis". He pointed out that what truly determines China's strategic space in its surrounding region is not the attitude of a single partner, but whether it can proactively build a cross-regional, multi-domain, sustainable, and iterative global strategic network. The future competition will no longer be a traditional military encirclement, but a comprehensive game across multiple dimensions, such as supply chains, energy systems, technological governance, and transnational institutions. To maintain its strategic buffer zone, China must understand its position from a global perspective, rather than merely from a regional one. In this sense, China's unique path lies in countering regional pressure through institutional, technological, and globalized strategic arrangements, thereby achieving its own strategic rebalancing.
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Zhou Chao is a Research Fellow for Geopolitical Strategy programme at ANBOUND, an independent think tank.
