The emerging alliance between Beijing and Moscow amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “is a dangerous combination for the world,” China expert Gordon Chang said on Sunday.

Speaking on “The Cats Roundtable” radio show on WABC 770AM hosted by John Catsimatidis, Chang said that “this is really [about] two very large states – both aggressive, both militaristic. They see the world in the same terms. They identify the United States as their enemy. And they’ve been cooperating for a very long time.”

He also said “they saw in the Biden administration an opening, and so China has been working very closely to support the Russian invasion – not only these big commodity deals, but also offering China’s financial system to the Russians. And also providing them technical help.”

Chang emphasized that the international community’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “has emboldened” Beijing, saying that the main idea China will take away from it is that “although the US is more powerful than China, maybe China can start a war and get away with it.”

This is so, Chang explained, because “this war should never have happened in the first place. The US, the EU, Britain  we have so much power over Russia. Our economies [are] in total more than 25 times larger than Russia’s. But Russia invaded anyway. And that really speaks to a failure of deterrence.”

Although China does not like the progressively tighter sanctions the world has placed on Russia, “China has also taken advantage of this in the last two weeks by pulling Russia into its [financial] orbit [and] out of the dollar orbit,” Chang said. “As we sanction Russia, Russia turns to China for not only these commodity sales… but also to join the Chinese financial system.”

Similar to the alliance between Germany and Japan during World War II, as well as Germany and the Soviet Union cooperating before the Nazis invaded the USSR, Chang said the ties between Moscow and Beijing is “a marriage of convenience.”

At this moment Russian President Vladimir Putin needs China, even though Beijing and Moscow have conflicting interests, because, for example, China covets the Russian Far East and believes it should really be part of China, Chang explained

Russia is not going to have good relations with the rest of Europe for a very long time, Chang said, because Moscow wants to reconstitute a greater Russian Empire.

However, Chang said that “Russia is in such a weakened state that this could become an albatross for China. And it also blackens China’s reputation, because we are seeing China now in more realistic terms… We’re starting to realize that we not only have a problem with Russia, but we’ve got a bigger problem with China than we first thought.”