Hu's trip to Russia: Without love,
but ... By Yu Bin
Chinese President Hu Jintao began a
three-day state visit to Russia on Monday where
like-mindedness, not love, will dominate the
summit chemistry between the two strategic
partners.
Hu's summit with President
Vladimir Putin will be loaded with the usual
high-sounding political declarations and trade
deals. Hu will also join Putin in a grand
inauguration of Russia's first ever "Year of
China", during which Russia will have hundreds of
China-related projects and activities regarding
business, media, education,
science,
sports, and tourism.
There are numerous
reasons for the extravagant demonstration of their
strategic partnership, now entering its second
decade. Perhaps more than any other time in the
history of their relationship, China and Russia
share a strategic outlook. Both are deeply
involved in the six-party nuclear talks with North
Korea. Their joint venture - the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) - not only survived
in the world post-September 11, 2001, but is
thriving.
In bilateral areas, the two
countries also have things to cheer: stability
across the 4,000-kilometer border,
institutionalized government-to-government
exchanges of various kinds, growing trade and
mutual investment (US$4.3 billion worth of deals
are expected to be signed at this meeting), and
stable military-military relations, to mention
just a few.
This "best ever" bilateral
relationship, however, is fostered, maintained and
nurtured precisely at a time when their domestic
political systems are very different. Russian has
become a democracy while China remains a one-party
state, though each departs from its past by taking
its own path and proceeding at its own pace.
It is largely true that, currently,
bilateral relations are the most equal since the
18th century. This rough parity between Moscow and
Beijing is reinforced - for the first time in the
past 100 years - by the absence of the Russia
factor in China's domestic politics. Last if not
least, today's Chinese elite, unlike their
predecessors (Jiang Zemin and Li Peng), are not
"made in Russia".
Given these
developments, the strategic partnership between
Beijing and Moscow is both prominent and
paradoxical. For one thing, the relatively high
level of trust between the top leaders is not
shared by ordinary Russians and Chinese. Both
publics seem to be bypassing each other to
Westernize and modernize. Even at the top level,
pragmatism, rather than compassion, dominates.
This is particularly true from a Russian
perspective. The "equal" relationship, which makes
Chinese more confident in dealing with their
Russian counterparts, is a psychological
discomfort for many in Russia. China's economic
growth is perceived by many more as a threat
rather than an opportunity.
This, coupled
with the ongoing de-population of Russia's Far
Eastern regions and a perceived illegal
immigration "problem" there, is fanning Russian
xenophobia. Even relatively fast-growing bilateral
economic relations, which are largely
complementary, are viewed as alarming because of
the shrinking share of manufactured goods in
Russia's exports to China.
The prospect of
Russia becoming a raw material supplier to China
is unacceptable, even if this has long been a fact
of economic life in Russia's trade relationship
with the West. At the societal level, ordinary
Chinese and Russians no longer love or hate one
another as in the past. The problem today is that
they may not care much about each other.
Finally, Russia's military sales to China,
which have long been a pillar of bilateral ties,
are now faced with uncertainties and need new
directions. It remains to be seen whether Moscow
is willing and able to "upgrade" its arms
transfers to China to the level of those purchased
by India.
Given these achievements and
problems, the current state of the bilateral
relationship is not as strong or weak as it
appears. It is a complex, and perhaps normal,
relationship: one with problems amid progress,
cooperation and competition, or a "marriage" that
lacks passion. Nonetheless, managing such a huge
and complex, albeit normal, relationship is a
challenging enterprise for Hu and Putin. Both
understand the limits of their achievements and
desire for more progress. Russia's "Year of
China", like China's "Year of Russia in 2006", is
designed to fill the gaps in their bilateral
relations.
Exactly how Russia's Year of
China will shape the minds of average Russians
regarding China remains to be seen. The
post-September 11, post-Iraq, and
post-Korean-nuclear-crisis world is promising and
problematic for the two countries. For all the
inadequacies in their bilateral ties, Russia and
China are each other's strategic rear.
In
this sense, the Sino-Russian relationship is
strategic by nature, be they friends or foes.
Plus, Moscow and Beijing need to continue to work
through the SCO to adjust their respective
interests in Central Asia. This is a region where
Russia and China are engaging and hedging the
United States, and is also a meeting place, if not
a fault line, between all major civilizations.
For all these reasons, their shared
strategic outlook - or dreams for a more stable
and more multipolar world order - would have to be
maintained, even from "different beds" (different
domestic political systems). Hu's trip to Russia,
therefore, is both symbolic and substantive. After
the turbulent 20th century, relations between
China and Russia have gone beyond love or hate,
but are in a state of strategically driven and
historically conscious "like-mindedness", to
borrow a phrase from Bobo Lo, leading Russia
scholar at the prestigious Chatham House (the
Royal Institute of International Affairs).
Dr Yu Bin
(byu@wittenberg.edu) is senior research
associate for the Shanghai Institute of American
Studies.
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