MOSCOW, BEIJING SET FOR STRATEGIC COOPERATION NEXT CENTURY
(Nezavisimaya Gazeta, December 28. In full.)
Dmitry GORNOSTAYEV
Li Peng, Chairman of the State Council of China, began his working visit to Moscow by meeting President Boris Yeltsin. He later said he was happy to be the first foreign leader to meet with Boris Yeltsin after his surgery.
This attention to the Chinese guest can be explained by Russia's growing interest in closer relations with its eastern neighbour. In his talk with Li Peng, Boris Yeltsin described previous Russo-Chinese agreements as strategic. Moscow clearly wants to establish strategic partnership with China in the future, if not now.
The implementation of this plan appears to be a very delicate matter as it concerns changes of a geo-political scale. We can expect a knot of problems to become very tight in relations between the West and the East next year, with the NATO expansion presenting the greatest contradiction. The positions of Russia and China coincide in this matter, as both states are campaigning against the NATO plans for eastward expansion of the sphere of its influence.
Next year will probably begin with a package of military- political statements, agreements and treaties. On the one hand, reports and planned information leaks about the new NATO members will become more frequent, and this is bound to worry Moscow. On the other hand, Russia's contacts with its eastern neighbours, namely China, India and Iran, will provoke a negative reaction of the West.
By the way, the visit of Chairman Jiang Jiemin to Moscow and the Russo-Chinese summit, planned for April 1997, will engender more fears in Europe and across the ocean, where such contacts and the development of relations between the two powerful Eurasian states are regarded as a potential threat to the West.
A group of American analysts, working on orders from the US federal government, prepared a report forecasting possible consequences of the NATO expansion. It points out, in part, that Russia can retaliate by building up relations with China, up to and including the creation of an informal alliance. If India joins it, the influence of such alliance in the Asia-Pacific region will be much stronger than the influence of the USA and NATO in Europe, even with due regard for the admission of new members to NATO, the report says. And this runs counter to the US national security interests, the analysts conclude.
It is clear that the expansion of NATO will prompt Russia to energise its relations with China. But how far will China be prepared to go in its rapprochement with Russia?
Beijing authorities are well aware of the prospects of China in the next century: it will be a superpower approaching the US in its development standards. In this situation, it would be much better for China to remain aloof and not join any alliances. Besides, the hypothetical Russo-Chinese alliance would aggravate not just Russo-American, but also American-Chinese relations.
It is not in China's interests to strain relations with the USA, because the development of Chinese economy largely depends on trade with the USA. So, economic relations with the USA will prove much more important than political relations with Russia. This is the main reason why a Russo-Chinese political alliance will not be possible in the near future.
As for strategic partnership, it is a distinct possibility. It would take great political will on the part of the two leaders to make it public. Judging by everything, the current Russian leaders fear a negative reaction of the West to such developments. But, as far as we know Boris Yeltsin and his behaviour when discussing foreign policy and taking corresponding decisions, we can expect Beijing to be proclaimed a strategic partner of Moscow at the April summit.
During his December 27 meeting with Li Peng, the Russian President clearly hinted that Moscow is prepared to take into account Peking's interests on the bilateral and international planes. Boris Yeltsin stated that Russia would fulfil its obligations concerning the demarcation of the border with China in 1997 and would support China in the matter of Taiwan, that is recognise the unity and territorial integrity of China. This clearly reaffirms Moscow's intention to establish relations of strategic partnership with China.
There are sufficient prerequisites for this, above all the development of economic relations. Bilateral annual trade is currently worth 7 billion dollars, and the two countries plan to raise it to 22 billion dollars. Li Peng and Viktor Chernomyrdin discussed ways to achieve this aim.
They signed agreements on trade, economic, scientific- technical and military-technical cooperation, in particular the protocol on the principles of a framework contract for the construction of a nuclear power station in China and an agreement between the two states' central banks. Li Peng and Viktor Chernomyrdin also signed a protocol on the construction of a gas centrifugation factory and on the delivery of Su-27 planes to China.
The delivery of fighters and the establishment of a technology for their production in China vexed both the West, the Asia-Pacific region and Moscow alike. Defence Minister Igor Rodionov has said that the growing military might of China can eventually present a threat to Russia.
However, the current Russo-Chinese talks were clearly a successful conclusion of the political year. And their results will bring political and economic benefits to both states.
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