DATE=7/19/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-RUSSIA RELATIONS
NUMBER=5-46688
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The meeting of the presidents of China and
Russia in Beijing this week indicates warming
relations between the two sometimes quarrelsome
powers. What brought them together in large part is
their joint opposition to the planned U-S missile
defense system, but they found agreement on other
issues as well. V-O-A's Ed Warner asked three
longtime analysts for their opinion of the Beijing
summit and its possible implications for the global
balance of power.
TEXT: When Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Chinese President Jiang Zemin met in Beijing this
week, their main topic of conversation was the United
States.
Paula Dobriansky, Washington director of the Council
on Foreign Relations, says President Putin was anxious
to have Chinese backing before he meets President
Clinton at the G-Eight summit in Okinawa:
/// DOBRIANSKY ACT ///
Moscow wants to make it quite clear that there
is very strong opposition to a national missile
defense program, and Russia is not going to move
forward in this area along the lines which the
United States has suggested to date. It also
demonstrates or solidifies the statements that
have been made out of Moscow about the kind of
relationship that exists between Moscow and
Beijing -- a kind of a counterweight to the
hegemonic power of the United States in the
world at large today.
/// END ACT ///
Concern over U-S policies brought the Russian and
Chinese leaders together, says William Kirby, director
of the Asia Center at Harvard University. But he
believes a full-fledged alliance that could threaten
the United States is all but inconceivable:
/// 1st KIRBY ACT ///
What is not inconceivable, however, is that they
emerge as leaders of a group of nations that is
uneasy with American unilateralism in the world,
and the sense that the United States is pursuing
its strategic objectives and its defense policy
in contravention of signed agreements, such as
the 1972 ABM Treaty, and without reaching new
accords with the important nuclear powers, which
are Russia and China.
// END ACT ///
Mr. Kirby says the two countries are closer today than
in decades, partly because Beijing no longer fears the
Russian political model could be a destabilizing
influence in China. Russian democracy has made
insufficient progress, and President Putin, stressing
order and centralization, is a reassuring figure.
Personal relations are critical, says Mr. Kirby:
/// 2ND KIRBY ACT ///
In the 1950's, Mao and Krushchev truly loathed
each other, and that as much as anything else
was the undoing of that relationship. Mr.
Gorbachev also was not well liked in China, not
just personally, but in terms of his political
policies. I think Putin and Jiang Zemin are
likely to get along in a sober, businesslike
fashion, but without anything like a new
alliance despite talk of future strategic
partnerships.
/// END ACT ///
Other factors stand in the way of a more substantial
alliance between Russia and China, says Keith Bush,
director of the Russian and Eurasian program at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington. The two countries may deplore U-S
policies but remain in need of U-S help:
/// BUSH ACT ///
In both cases, their relations with the United
States are more important than with each other.
This is certainly true for China, whose trade
with the United States is probably 10 times as
high as that with Russia. It is also true that
Russia depends much more on the United States
than on China. So this is good rhetoric, but it
is not a strategic partnership or alliance. It
is somewhat limited because of the rather poor
economic ties between them.
/// END ACT ///
While Russia supplies China with a billion dollars in
arms each year, overall trade between the two counties
has declined from 10-billion dollars in 1994 to less
than six-billion dollars last year. (Signed)
NEB/EW/WTW
19-Jul-2000 18:54 PM EDT (19-Jul-2000 2254 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
