From Taiwan comes information that increases tensions over the Indo-Pacific by a lot. The growing military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing no longer appears to be a mere exercise in convenience: documents and analyses reveal a strategic design in which Russia becomes the main promoter of Chinese capabilities, with direct implications for the island’s security and global balances.

A report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), picked up by the Washington Post, suggests that Moscow has agreed to provide Beijing not only with advanced weaponry, but also with training and logistical systems aimed at airborne operations. The equipment included includes BMD-4M amphibious vehicles, Sprut-SDM1 self-propelled howitzers, BTR-MDM armoured vehicles, and complex high-altitude parachuting systems. So these are no ordinary supplies: Russia is now transferring operational know-how developed over years of conflicts, from Chechnya to Ukraine, offering China tools that could rapidly close its military gap with the United States. According to SIPRI data, in fact, China has about 40,000 airborne troops, a significant number but with limited real experience, while the United States has about 70,000, with more advanced technological and operational equipment.

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Moscow as Beijing’s ‘trainer

Chinese strategists see elite airborne forces as a decisive weapon in the early hours of a possible conflict. The ability to launch thousands of troops directly at sensitive targets – airports, command infrastructure, logistical hubs – would serve to disrupt Taiwan’s response capability. Analysts quoted by the Washington Post point out that, if coordinated with amphibious landings and missile strikes, these operations could confront the island with an overload of simultaneous threats, reducing the local forces’ room for manoeuvre. For Taiwan, this would be a disaster waiting to happen.

Jack Watling, senior fellow at RUSI, calls Russia a real ‘enabler‘ for China. The contract, estimated at $584 million, includes accelerated deliveries, full technical manuals, and adaptations to integrate Russian systems with Chinese equipment.

Cooperation on this level indicates a relationship that goes far beyond the rhetoric of ‘friendships without limits’ proclaimed by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin: it is a strategic integration that could have direct repercussions in the event of an armed confrontation over Taiwan.

Taipei’s vulnerabilities

According to Su Tzu-yun, an analyst at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research in Taiwan, Russian technical support would greatly increase the pressure on the island’s defences, which have always been considered fragile against coordinated amphibious assaults. Internal assessments and leaked Pentagon documents emphasise that Taiwan’s air defence remains vulnerable to massive missile attacks. In a possible conflict scenario, the combination of cyber attacks, electronic disruptions, and helicopters could prevent Taipei from reacting effectively in the initial moments, the most decisive for the island’s fate.

Taiwan’s defence budget for 2024 has been set at around $19 billion, an increase of 7.7% over the previous year: a significant figure, but still far behind China’s military spending, which exceeds $220 billion annually according to Western estimates.

The geopolitical dimension

The Washington Post notes that military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing has grown exponentially: 14 joint exercises were held last year, almost twice as many as ten years ago. Russia’s experience in Ukraine, particularly in saturation operations and war logistics, is a valuable laboratory for China to fill gaps never tested in real combat.
For Moscow, engaged in a war of attrition against the West, opening a political and military front on Taiwan means shifting the strategic pressure and forcing Washington and its allies to disperse as many resources as possible.
Regional actors are following with growing alarm: Japan has announced a $320 billion military build-up plan over five years, while Australia, together with the US and the UK, has boosted the AUKUS pact to equip itself with nuclear-powered submarines and new missile capabilities.

Taiwan’s countermeasures

Taipei, aware of the growing risk, has increased its defence budget and initiated specific exercises against air raids such as defence simulations at Taoyuan International Airport. However, the disproportion of means and the convergence between Beijing and Moscow do pose new challenges: Taiwan must not only strengthen its military capabilities, but also maintain the diplomatic attention of its allies and avoid being perceived as a secondary front in a global competition.