Eurasia Group, the world's largest political risk consultancy, released its annual Top Risks report on January 8. Among this year's top ten global risks, the fifth is the "Rogue Boy Band," whose members include Russia, North Korea, and Iran. In Eurasia Group's assessment, these three countries are the world's most powerful rogue states. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they have been working to strengthen cooperation, driven by their shared hatred of the United States and the belief that the current global order benefits only the West—leading them to willingly violate international law in order to undermine that order.
Many readers of Eurasia Group's risk report feel that the "Rogue Boy Band" is missing one member: China. They believe China, too, is a rogue state in every sense of the word—that the degree to which it undermines international relations and the international order is no less than that of Russia, North Korea, or Iran. How, then, could China not be included in the "Rogue Boy Band"?
China, Russia, Iran, North Korea: A New Axis of Evil?
In recent years, Western public opinion and political figures have indeed been portraying China, together with Russia, North Korea, and Iran, as a new "axis of evil." For instance, former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently warned in an interview that the world should guard against an "axis of authoritarianism" led by China, and US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an interview last October, likewise described China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as a "new axis of evil."
This time, Eurasia Group did not follow America's "political correctness" by placing China on the "Rogue Boy Band" list—strictly speaking, "rogue" and "evil" do not carry identical political connotations, so not being a member of the "Rogue Boy Band" does not necessarily mean China is not part of an "axis of evil." Although the report offers no explanation for this distinction, it does note that China often benefits substantially from the anti-Western actions of these three rogue states, and that without China's tacit approval, the impact of their rogue activities would be far smaller. It further states that the destructive potential of the deepening cooperation this year among Russia, North Korea, and Iran—cooperation that Beijing has either encouraged or at least turned a blind eye to—should not be underestimated.
This shows that Eurasia Group is not unaware of the similarities between China and the three rogue states of Russia, North Korea, and Iran. It is precisely this "similarity" that makes China an accomplice of the other three. So why does Eurasia Group still not count China as a member of the "Rogue Boy Band"? The answer lies in how it defines "rogue." According to the risk report, Eurasia Group regards Russia, North Korea, and Iran as "drivers of today's geopolitical disorder, bent on undermining existing institutions, governments, and principles." In other words, since the Russia-Ukraine war, these three countries have banded together to disrupt or even overturn the existing international order, creating global geopolitical turmoil and thereby harming the interests of the West, particularly the United States.
Is China Simply Less "Rogue" Than Russia, Iran, and North Korea?
Although China, too, is seeking to reshape the geopolitical and international landscape, and given its sheer scale the long-term harm it poses to the global order is far greater than that of Russia, North Korea, or Iran, China is nonetheless not as blatant or naked about it as they are. China still claims that it does not challenge America's "hegemonic" position and does not seek to change the existing international order. For example, during his recent visit to the United States, Liu Jianchao, head of the International Department of the CCP Central Committee, publicly stated that China would not start from scratch to build some new international order of its own. Moreover, in Eurasia Group's view, the Biden-Xi summit last November put a timely brake on the potential loss of control in the competition and confrontation between the two countries, averting the risk of dragging the US into another military conflict or even war with China—a wise move for American interests. It is in this sense that China differs somewhat from Russia, North Korea, and Iran: although all four are "rogues," the degree of their "rogueness" differs, and China does not yet "qualify" to be a member of the "Rogue Boy Band."
Presumably, those at home and abroad who despise Xi Jinping and the CCP authorities to the core and are determined to overthrow Communist Party rule will not accept Eurasia Group's criteria for judging international political rogues. As analyzed above, they would argue that since China poses far greater long-term harm to the free world and the democratic order than Russia, North Korea, or Iran, how could it not be included in the "Rogue Boy Band" simply because its actions are less blatant than theirs? Some might even entertain a conspiracy theory, wondering whether Eurasia Group has struck some kind of deal of interests with China that earns it "lenient treatment." That view, of course, is mistaken. In the very same risk report, immediately after the "Rogue Boy Band," Eurasia Group ranks the Chinese economy as the sixth-greatest global risk, arguing that Beijing's failure to resolve problems such as a faltering growth model, financial fragility, insufficient demand, and a crisis of confidence will expose flaws in the CCP's legitimacy and increase the risk of social instability. Given China's global scale, any risk originating within China—especially an economic one—will spill over into the world and constitute a global geopolitical risk.
So when assessing China's "rogueness," one needs to return to the substance of the question and distinguish between rogue behavior and rogue intent, between long-term severity and present severity. Eurasia Group classifies Russia, North Korea, and Iran as a "rogue gang," and while China, too, engages in rogue behavior, the severity of its actions and their present-day consequences are not yet sufficient to place it in this "gang." This is not Eurasia Group going easy on China—rather, it reflects the report's specific focus on this year's geopolitical risks, and its analysis proceeds from that angle.
China's Support for Russia Falls Short of North Korea's and Iran's
Comparing China-Russia relations with Russia-North Korea and Russia-Iran relations makes Eurasia Group's point clearer. Although China has yet to publicly condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the very first point of its 2022 position paper on resolving the Ukraine issue—reiterated repeatedly since—is respect for the sovereignty of all countries, which implicitly signals that China does not endorse the war Russia launched. In addition, although China-Russia trade topped $200 billion last year, with China buying large quantities of Russian oil and gas and Chinese automobiles coming to dominate the Russian market, and although one could argue in some sense that this trade has propped up Russia and given it the capacity to keep grinding out the war, China can counter that it was Western sanctions on Russia that handed it a windfall, that the two countries are engaged in nothing more than ordinary trade, and that other countries such as India are likewise buying large amounts of Russian oil—even the United States imports Russian oil. As for the issue that most concerns the US and Europe—Russia purchasing weapons from China—China still does not dare cross that "red line" drawn by the US and Europe. Although there have been reports of Chinese weapons-related products being shipped to Russia, at most these are dual-use military-civilian goods, not outright arms trade.
In both diplomacy and trade, China's support for Russia still differs substantially in degree from that of Iran, and especially North Korea. Diplomatically and politically, North Korea's and Iran's support for Russia—particularly North Korea's support for the Russia-Ukraine war—is unambiguous. Militarily, Iran has supplied Russia with drones, and North Korea has gone further, supplying Russia with more than a million artillery shells; in return, Russia has provided both countries, especially North Korea, with sensitive military technology, allowing the latter to upgrade weapons that threaten the Korean Peninsula, Northeast Asia, and even US security. To some extent China is happy to see this happening, but it remains comparatively cautious in these areas and is unlikely to supply Russia with weapons as recklessly as North Korea and Iran have done.
The reason China remains somewhat cautious about developing political and military ties with the three "rogue" states of Russia, North Korea, and Iran, rather than openly banding together with them and throwing in its lot completely, is that Xi Jinping does not want to place himself fully and openly in opposition to the West. As I have said many times, Xi's goal is not to have China replace the United States as the world's new sole hegemon, but rather to pursue a bipolar world order—joint China-US management of global affairs (even though China's official banner is a "multipolar world"). The root cause, of course, is that China does not yet have the strength for this, and is unlikely to have the strength to become a sole hegemon in the future; but it is also because becoming the world's new hegemon might not actually be in China's best interest. To have others recognize your hegemonic status, you must first provide global public goods, particularly a security order—and China does not want to bear too much of that cost, since with a population of 1.4 billion, doing so would consume too many of its own resources. Seen from this angle, China's claim that it does not seek to replace the United States or build an entirely new order from scratch can be taken as sincere rather than false. But even while helping maintain the existing international order, China is also building institutions and platforms of its own that it dominates.
It's just that in recent years, China's economic downturn has dealt a blow to Xi's "ambitions." His top priority now is to breathe new life into the economy, which requires further opening up and a relatively friendly international environment. Challenging American and Western interests too aggressively would worsen China's geopolitical environment. Under these circumstances, China cannot afford to get too close to the three rogue states of Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
There is no doubt that in its domestic affairs China is a "rogue" state and the CCP a "rogue" regime, but in its foreign relations and geopolitics, it strives to show a less "rogue" face. Eurasia Group's decision not to count China as a member of the "Rogue Boy Band" is not because it was fooled by China's outward appearance, but because it has seen through Xi Jinping's "timidity."