Russia and China carried out a massive joint military exercise last week. More than 10,000 troops from the two Asiatic autocracies trained together in northwestern China, testing the interoperability of their systems and firing each other’s weapons. In an extraordinary show of trust, China included J-20 stealth fighters in the combined operations — a signal to the world that it won’t use them against Russia.

The operation was yet another rebuke to those Western fantasists who imagine that Russia might somehow be recalled to its Christian roots and detached from Beijing. But it was much more than that. It was a visible sign that the international order we knew is disappearing. The long hegemony of the English-speaking peoples is drawing to a close. The post-Covid world will be altogether more despotic.