As the emerging power with the largest economy, China will play a particularly important role in shaping the international system. Russia, though its economy is much smaller, remains influential: it has a privileged position on the UNSC, a key role in global energy markets and a powerful military arsenal. It is also, alongside China, the only one of the emerging powers with an undemocratic political system (though Russia’s authoritarianism is milder than that of China). That is one reason why, on a number of international political questions – such as the emerging civil war in Syria in February 2012 – China and Russia work together against the West.
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