French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen proposed that the EU proactively seek to divide Russia from China in order to prevent those two from supposedly forming an anti-Western alliance with one another sometime in the future. Here’s what she said during a radio interview on Monday:
“Imagine we do nothing to prevent a situation in which the largest country in the world unites with the country with the largest population. We will allow the largest world producer of raw materials – Russia – to unite with the largest ‘factory’ of the planet – China – perhaps we will let them become the number one military force in the world. I think this is a big danger. Therefore, it is necessary to use diplomatic measures, when the war is over, when the peace agreement is signed, to avoid this unification, which can become a threat to us in the 21st century.”

For however much her grand strategic vision might appeal to some of her compatriots, it’s unrealistic to expect it to achieve any success. The Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership is already an undeclared entente that enables those two to serve as the dual engines of the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Russia’s potentially disproportionate dependence on China was already preemptively averted by India decisively serving as Moscow’s supplementary valve from Western pressure, which New Delhi did in order to maintain the balance of influence in Eurasia between those three. That has in turn given this South Asian state the capability to shape the emerging world order during the global systemic transition a lot more powerfully than most other countries in the world. So long as this Indo-Russo axis remains in effect, Moscow has no reason to even consider Le Pen’s proposal no matter how enticing it might be.

About that, there actually isn’t any credible carrot that the EU can dangle before the Kremlin to convince its leadership to distance Russia from China irrespective of whether or not India continues functioning as its irreplaceable valve from Western pressure (which it’s expected to do in any case). There’s absolutely no trust left between these two sides, with Foreign Minister Lavrov recently elaborating on why his country considers that bloc to be nothing more than a bunch of US-controlled NATO puppets. The unprecedented sanctions regime against it means that Moscow will never feel safe investing in the EU.

China, by contrast, wouldn’t ever steal hundreds of billions of dollars of any country’s foreign reserves like the US-led West just stole Russia’s. This means that the presumed economic dimension of Le Pen’s proposal is doomed to fail since there’s no way that Moscow would choose the EU over China after what just recently transpired due to America’s successful meddling over the past few months. Furthermore, it’s in Russia’s objective national interests to continue demanding that newly designated unfriendly countries like those in the EU pay for gas with rubles order to continue boosting its currency.

That geo-economic judo move was masterful since it flipped the financial tables on the West and put the EU under enormous pressure in response to the unprovoked pressure that it attempted to put Russia under at its American overlord’s behest. It’s unimaginable that Le Pen can devise a rapprochement plan with Russia that’s attractive enough for it to simultaneously distance itself from China while abandoning its decree demanding that newly designated unfriendly countries pay for gas with rubles. That being the case, it’s possible that she had some ulterior motives behind publicly sharing her provocative proposal.

It’s a bold move for any Western politician to propose re-engaging with Russia under any circumstances considering the successful reassertion of American hegemony over Europe since the start of Moscow’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine. In fact, one could even describe it as “politically incorrect” and therefore “unacceptable” from the standpoint of that civilization’s subjective standards nowadays. To temper the predictable whiplash from her proposal, Le Pen might have thought it tactically necessary to include an anti-Chinese motivation behind it since Sinophobia is also rising in the West too.

Not only that, but it’s inevitable that the US will recalibrate its dual Eurasian “containment” efforts against Russia and China in order to restore a sense of balance between these two supercontinental fronts after devoting disproportionate attention to the Western Eurasian one in recent months at the perceived expense of the Eastern Eurasian front. With that expectation in mind, it can’t be discounted that the next phase of the US’ reassertion of hegemony over Europe will include demands for its vassal states to distance themselves from China too on whatever pretext might be employed to “justify” this.

Perhaps wanting to be ahead of the curve and thus presenting herself as somewhat of a grand strategic visionary, Le Pen might have thought it better to proverbially kill two birds with one stone by proposing a pragmatic rapprochement with Russia while also declaring that it’ll actually be driven by anti-Chinese motivations. It doesn’t matter that her proposal is unrealistic to achieve in practice for the earlier explained reasons, but it might play well to some of her country’s electorate and possibly even earn her a bit of favor from the US, or at the very least reduce some of its suspicions about her intentions.

She seems sincere about entering into a rapprochement with Russia, though there’s no way that this can happen without the unilateral removal of the illegal sanctions that the US coerced the EU to impose upon it and the bloc’s refusal to continue backing Kiev in America’s Ukrainian proxy war on Russia. Absent those two extremely unlikely moves, Le Pen’s ambitious plans will ultimately fail. Be that as it may, it’s still important to analyze the intentions behind her public proposal, the reason why it’s unrealistic, and what it might hint about the next phase of the US’ Eurasian grand strategy.