Agreed; much of it is that both China and Russia profit handsomely from nuclear proliferation. - Edit 2
Before modification by Joel at 06/10/2012 10:39:06 PM
If you ask which country most often blocks our foreign policy, which is really what geopolitical foe means, then Russia still tops the list. If the question was which country was the greatest long term threat China would win.
Every time you're talking about sanctions against a rogue state or trying to put pressure on Iran, it's not either China or Russia that blocks you, but the pair of them. As far as blocking the US and defending the sovereignty of the more dubious nations go, the two of them are really an impressively united front most of the time.
The main difference is that the US and China have more conflicting strategic interests due to our alliance with Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. After WWII, the new constitution MacArthur wrote for Japan prostrated them to us, but also made us almost entirely responsible for their defense: Reducing Japan to a military satellite of America made their strategic interests ours. The significance of that is inestimable in light of the historic tug-of-war between Japan and China for control of East Asia. That Korea historically serve an Asian strategic role similar to Belgiums in Europe only raises Americas stakes.
Otherwise, the only difference between China and Russia is the latter consistently lobbies East European states against hosting our early-warning radar bases, anti-missile missiles and other components of a potential anti-nuclear missile defense. That is non-trivial, but pales in comparison to the above mentioned issues.
For the rest, it might as well still be 1955, as Russia and China woo the Non-Aligned States with one voice. The motives are somewhat inverted; before they sought strategic benefits first and economic ones second, but now the the reverse. The effect, however, is very similar, except that 1) the US has very little with which to make counteroffers and 2) todays Sino-Russian offer is the sale of nuclear weapons technology, material and production.
The whole charade is absurd: Obviously China and Russia BOTH veto all sanctions that would block their enormous profits from nuclear arms sales to countries that almost exclusively threaten the US and stretch our finite armed forces ever thinner. Perhaps if militant Islamic dissidents in Southwest Russia and China ever threaten those states to the extent Al Qaeda et al. threaten the US that might change. Until then, however, China and Russia will keep making money hand-over-fist selling nuclear weapons to Americas foes. And each time we introduce a UN resolution to stop them the Chinese and Russian UN Representatives will press their "nay" buttons in unison as soon as they recover from paroxysms of laughter.