"One thing we know: Things will become even more destabilized if we don't step up Sino-U.S. cooperation. If you want to envisage a worst-case scenario, it is that Putin reveals step by step the inner weaknesses of the West, particularly in Europe, and the Chinese see in that an opportunity for emulation in the Far East, and then step by step through a gradual process we will be witnessing the emergence of Sino-Russian partnership in favor of a drastic change in the global balance of power."