Undeterred by Biden administration, China, Russia, Iran showing united front against U.S.

Three of America's foremost adversaries have recently signaled they're forming a united front against the United States, threatening to upend the current U.S.-led world order as they rebuff the Biden administration's efforts to deter and lower tensions with them.

China, Russia, and Iran are ramping up trade, diplomacy, and military cooperation with each other as Washington scrambles to stave off crises with the latter two and manage a long-term competition with Beijing for global influence.

Last week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing ahead of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. The meeting came amid Russia's showdown with the West over Ukraine, which U.S. officials have been saying Russia could invade in the coming days.

Hours before Xi and Putin shook hands, the U.S. warned China against helping Russia evade sanctions related to the Ukraine crisis. That warning came after Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to push Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to keep China neutral or altogether out of the Ukraine crisis in a call last month.

Xi didn't explicitly endorse a Russian invasion of Ukraine by name, but he offered strong and extensive support to Putin. In a sweeping joint statement to mark the meeting, both leaders sent a clear message to Washington: Stay out of our neighborhoods.

"Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions," the statement read. Both nations "intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext, oppose color revolutions, and will increase cooperation in the aforementioned areas."

In the lengthy, 5,300-word statement, Xi also joined Putin in opposing "further enlargement of NATO" and called "on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized Cold War approaches."

The State Department told Just the News that NATO is a "defensive alliance, and we don't have aggressive intent toward any country, including Russia."

"Let's remember who the aggressor is here," a department spokesperson said. "Russia has created this crisis by amassing forces on Ukraine's borders, including in Belarus, which also borders NATO Allies. They have the power to de-escalate, and we would certainly welcome that."

Nonetheless, China endorsed Russia's position on Ukraine last week, according to Andrew Weiss, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who previously served on the National Security Council.

Moscow, meanwhile, endorsed Beijing's position that Taiwan is "an inalienable part of China" and agreed to oppose "any forms of independence" for Taiwan.

Xi and Putin heralded their relationship in the joint statement, declaring a "new era" in international relations and calling out "actors representing but the minority on the international scale" who "continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues" — a not-so-subtle jab at the U.S.

"Friendship between the two states has no limits," the two leaders vowed. "There are no 'forbidden' areas of cooperation."

When pressed Sunday on whether he was concerned about China and Russia drawing closer, President Biden seemed to dismiss the question.

"There is nothing new about that," Biden told reporters.

However, some experts disagree on the significance of the Xi-Putin meeting and joint statement.

"This is a pledge to stand shoulder to shoulder against America and the West, ideologically as well as militarily," Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, told the New Yorker. "This statement might be looked back on as the beginning of Cold War Two."

What's also new is the extent of China-Russia trade, which topped $140 billion last year — an all-time record and more than double the amount it was as recently as 2015. Last Friday, both countries announced new oil and gas deals valued at an estimated $117.5 billion.

"This is unique in the American experience," former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the "Just the News" television program, cohosted by John Solomon and Amanda Head, on Monday. "President Obama was pretty weak around the world ... What we've seen in just this first year of the Biden administration is even weaker."

Pompeo cited Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he called a "debacle," and the Biden administration's recent decision to provide sanctions relief to Iran, apparently without receiving anything in return — a move he called "nuts."

"Putin sees this. The rest of the autocrats in the world see this failed American leadership, and it's a fundamental reversal from" the Trump administration," he added, arguing the Biden administration hasn't established sufficient deterrence to back down Russia.

"Putin hasn't changed," Pompeo said. "What changed was how America was prepared to respond."

Two weeks before the Xi-Putin meeting, Blinken met in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who proposed an interim deal to revive stalled talks with Iran over its nuclear program. The Biden administration has tried to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, from which then-President Trump withdrew in 2018. U.S. officials have said negotiations only have a few weeks left to produce some kind of agreement.

"Russia shares our sense of urgency," Blinken said. "We hope Russia will use the influence it has with Iran to impress upon Iran that sense of urgency."

As Blinken was speaking, Russia was beginning joint naval drills with Iran and China in the Indian Ocean.

One day earlier, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was in Moscow meeting with Putin.

While in Russia, Raisi spoke before the Duma and castigated the U.S. for having a "strategy of domination," which he said has "failed" and put America at "its weakest position." Raisi, whose country is under U.S. sanctions, said countering them requires a collective response from "independent nations," an apparent call for unity with Russia and other adversaries of Washington.

Raisi also echoed Russian talking points on NATO, saying the alliance "seeks to infiltrate various geographical areas with new alibis that threaten the common interests of independent states."

Two days earlier, a spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee indicated what Iran hopes ultimately to achieve through its relationships with China and Russia.

"In the new world order, a triangle consisting of three powers — Iran, Russia, and China — has formed," said Mahmoud Abbaszadeh-Meshkini. "This new arrangement heralds the end of the inequitable hegemony of the United States and the West."

Such rhetoric echoes similar messages out of China and Russia.

In 2014, for example, Putin delivered his annual speech to the Valdai International Discussion Club, whose theme for that year's meeting was "The World Order: New Rules or a Game Without Rules."

During his remarks, Putin said adhering to a U.S.-led global order is not an option, adding the world either needs to respect Russian interests or risk a world without rules.

"Either way, we can do whatever we like, disregarding all rules and regulations," Putin said.

One year earlier, Xi told the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee that, among other objectives, they must prioritize "laying the foundation for a future where we will win the initiative and have the dominant position."

In 2017, Xi said China would "become a global leader in terms of composite national strength and international influence" and build a "stable international order" in which it can achieve "national rejuvenation."

Still, as of now, Abbaszadeh-Meshkini's statement about a new world order is "just a hope," according to Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

But that doesn't mean China, Russia, and Iran won't stop trying.

"America's authoritarian adversaries are committed to upending the balance of power and alliance system around them," said Benham Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "Iran, China, and Russia similarly read the past few years as an indication that they can and should be pushing harder to meet that goal."

Taleblu added that, while it "may be analytically too easy to say America's adversaries are drawing closer to one another, that is the message Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran are sending."

He and Vatanka both noted China, which is Iran's largest trading partner, is arguably the chief reason why Iran survived American economic pressure by buying Iranian oil and ignoring U.S. sanctions.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently announced that the 25-year "comprehensive strategic partnership" between Iran and China signed last year just went into effect. The core of the arrangement is China will invest significant sums of money in Iran over the next quarter-century in exchange for a steady supply of cheap Iranian oil.

Meanwhile, trade between Iran and Russia, while not huge, exceeded $3.5 billion last year, a record, and appears to be trending upward.

The Russia-Iran relationship is "pragmatic," according Vatanka. He told Just the News that, while the Iranian public and pragmatists within the regime are skeptical about Russia as a strategic partner, "the hardline camp," which is currently in power in Tehran, "dreams of Moscow as the savior against the Americans."

Russia's apparent goal of controlling Ukraine has a connection to Moscow's efforts to help Iran prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, according to Hudson Institute senior fellows Bryan Clark and Mike Doran.

"Russia's naval bases in Sevastopol, Crimea (which Mr. Putin annexed from Ukraine in 2014), and in Tartus, Syria, serve as operational hubs for Russia's Mediterranean presence," they wrote recently. "A strong, independent Ukraine threatens Moscow's ability to project power into the Middle East."

Russia intervened militarily in Syria to help Iran keep its ally Assad in power during the years-long Syrian conflict.

China and Russia's support for Iran appears to contradict the State Department's messaging about nuclear negotiations with Iran.

A department spokesperson told Just the News that Beijing and Moscow "have a profound shared interest" with the U.S. in ensuring that Iran never develops a nuclear weapon.

"We have been working together within the framework of Vienna talks on mutual return to full implementation of the [nuclear deal]," the spokesperson added.

Iran isn't the only authoritarian adversary that China and Russia have helped. Both powers, for example, blocked U.S. efforts to sanction North Korea at the United Nations as recently as last month.

In the Western Hemisphere, Nicaragua recently revived ties with China, signing a series of agreements with Beijing and ending its relationship with Taiwan. China and Russia have also continued to support Venezuela and prop up its oil trade, despite the country being under U.S. sanctions.

"We've got three more years where I think the bad guys will see that they can take advantage of things that matter" to the American people," said Pompeo. "It's really unfortunate, and there's a lot of risk in the world today because of it."

The White House didn't respond to a request for comment for this story.