A
fly in China's Russian ointment
By M K Bhadrakumar
China would know that climbing the greasy
pole of global power politics isn't easy. Rivals
play rough. But China couldn't have expected to
see Russia among them.
The backdrop is
poignant. Russia-China strategic coordination has
touched a high level. Beijing has been joyful
about the prospect of Vladimir Putin returning to
the Kremlin as president in early May after a
spell as premier. Beijing sees Putin as the best
thing that ever happened to "post-Soviet" Russia.
Maybe it was
sheer naivety, or brilliant
guile, but China preferred to see Putin as a
one-dimensional figure consumed by a hatred of the
West. Beijing saw a dark Western conspiracy to
discredit him as he reclaimed power in the
Kremlin.
Therefore, Russian natural gas
company Gazprom's announcement on April 6 that it
had signed a deal to take a minority stake in the
development of two gas projects off the coast of
Vietnam would have a Shakespearean touch about it
- Et tu, Brute?
The Gazprom deal was
certainly Putin's decision. Gazprom will explore
two licensed blocks in the Vietnamese continental
shelf in the South China Sea. It takes a 49% stake
in the offshore blocks, which hold an estimated
1.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and more
than 25 million tons of gas condensate.
Beijing is apparently taken aback. Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin was guarded
in his response: "China hoped companies from
countries outside the South China Sea region would
respect and support efforts by directly concerned
parties in resolving disputes through bilateral
negotiations."
Beijing was left guessing
as the bear waded into the choppy waters of the
South China Sea. True, the two exploration blocks
are within Vietnam's waters and for Gazprom it is
a lucrative business deal. But Gazprom is a
state-owned company and is widely regarded as one
of Russia's "geopolitical tools".
Chinese
commentaries have signaled that Beijing doubts
Moscow's intentions. The Global Times pointed out:
Vietnam and the Philippines are both
trying to seek help from countries outside the
region, making the bilateral negotiations into a
multilateral confrontation. China cannot be too
cautious about any other superpower involvement
in the South China Sea region. Russia should not
send any wrong or ambiguous signals about the
South China Sea. It will not only make the
dispute even more difficult to settle for China,
but also raises doubts about Russia's real
intentions behind the gas
deal.
Besides, Gazprom's gas deal is
not a flash in the pan. Russia is systematically
rebuilding its Soviet-era ties with Vietnam (which
tapped into shared antipathies toward China),
especially since 2009 when Putin told his
Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung that the
relationship had assumed "strategic significance".
Moving eastward Moscow has
given an US$8 billion loan for the construction of
Vietnam's first nuclear power plant. Russia is
Vietnam's most important source of advanced weapon
technology. And the weapons systems include the
SS-N-25 Switchblade/Kh-35 Uransubsonic anti-ship
missile, the Ka-27 naval helicopter, the SU-30 MK
multi-role fighter aircraft, upgraded Kilo Class
attack submarines, Gepard Class Corvettes, the
Molnia/Project 12418 fast attack craft packed with
Moskit/SS-N-22 Sunburn supersonic anti-ship
missiles, Svetlyak export class patrol boats
(originally developed for the KGB's border guards)
equipped with anti-aircraft missiles, and so on -
all of which help boost Vietnam's capability to
defy China.
Russian Defense Minister
Anatoly Serdyukov has promised Moscow's help for
Vietnam to build a submarine base for its Kilos, a
loan to help Hanoi buy rescue and auxiliary
vessels from Russia and planes for Vietnam's navy
as well as build a ship repair yard that will also
service visiting Russian navy ships.
Moscow hopes to regain access to its
Soviet-era military base in Camh Ran Bay. An
editorial in the Chinese daily The Global Times
last week said:
All the cooperation ... goes beyond
economic interests and is chiefly related to
political and security concerns. That is the
main consideration of Russia when developing the
strategic relationship with Vietnam. The
importance of the South China Sea [for Russia]
depends not only on the abundant resources but
also its strategic significance, where the
Russian strategic foresight lies. With the
economy recovering and military reform
advancing, Russia has begun to move eastward.
Vietnam is definitely the springboard
... In essence, Russia standing behind Vietnam
is not that different from the US, which is
coveting the South China Sea [from] behind the
Philippines.
The editorial foresees
that Russia's forays will begin to grate on
China's vital interests once Russian military
prowess is fully restored. What could China
possibly do? The editorial says, "China must
improve its own strength and seek as many common
interests as possible with Russia. National
strength is the premise and assurance for a
mutually respectful relationship, and within the
constraint of common interests, Russia could be
cautious in any decisions related to China."
The common wisdom is that Russia is
nervous about "rising China" - about becoming its
raw-material appendage, about the demographic
imbalance in Siberia and the Far East, and so on.
Instead, how about a China feeling insecure about
Russia's surge in the Asia-Pacific and a
Russian-American entente cordiale at some point?
Indeed, influential voices in the US
strategic community like former National Security
Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski argue that the US
should "welcome into the West" the democratizing
Russia and in turn aspire to play the role of a
"regional balancer and conciliator" in Asia. He
wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine recently:
It is not unrealistic to imagine a
larger configuration of the West emerging after
2025. In the course of the next several decades,
Russia could embark on a comprehensive law-based
democratic transformation compatible with both
EU [European Union] and NATO [North Atlantic
Treaty Organization] standards ... [Russians]
would then be on their way to integration with
the transatlantic community. But even before
that occurs, a deepening geopolitical community
of interest could arise among the US, Europe
(including Turkey) and
Russia.
Raging storms
Whether a genuine US-Russia concord is
possible during Putin's presidency remains a
debatable point. However, China also worries that
there are Moscow elites who are wedded to
"Atlanticism". Arguably, as Brzezinski said in an
interview recently, "It's 2012, not the mid-1970s"
and Russia and the US are not the enemies they
once were; their current ties form a "mixed
relationship" - a combination of practicality,
antagonism and indifference. They may have
political differences over Syria or Iran but they
have just as many shared national security
interests, which could one day include "rising
China".
There is indeed a "residual
resentment" in the Russian psyche - as Brzezinski
put it. But US President Barack Obama intends to
work on it if he gets re-elected. Obama was
overheard recently on the sidelines of the a
nuclear security summit in Seoul seeking Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev's help to convey to
Putin that he needs "space" until the November
presidential election gets over to deal with
missile defense (ABM - anti-ballistc missiles) and
other discords in the US-Russia reset.
Moscow has since piped down its rhetoric
on the ABM dispute with the US. On the other hand,
China has stepped up its criticism of the US's ABM
program. Luo Zhaohui, director general of the
department of Asian Affairs in the Chinese Foreign
Ministry, told the People's Daily on Wednesday
that the deployment of the ABM system in the
Asia-Pacific would have a "negative effect on
global and regional strategic stability, and go
against the security needs" of the countries in
the region.
Therefore, Gazprom's deal with
Vietnam comes as a reality check to Beijing as
regards Russian intentions. The Global Times
editorial's caption says it all - "Putin looks to
Soviet past in South China Sea strategy." The
editorial was fairly blunt: "Russia's intentions
and activities deserve attention. China must
clarify Russia's strategic intentions in the South
China Sea. In fact, over the past decades,
Russia's attention has never moved away from the
region and its has a vested interest in the area."
These Chinese articles appeared on the eve
of a visit by Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on
Friday to Moscow, where he met his Russian
counterpart Sergey Lavrov and possibly raised the
issue of Gazprom's dealings in the South China
Sea. Interestingly, on Friday, Jiechi also
telephonically spoke with his US counterpart,
Hillary Clinton, to convey China's "willingness to
cooperate closely" with the US in efforts to reach
an early political solution to the crisis in
Syria.
Did Yang hint at course correction
on Syria? It's hard to say. Beijing did go out on
a limb to support Russia's line - which is based
on Russia's specific interests in Syria - and put
at risk its expanding ties with petrodollar Gulf
monarchies. Such enthusiasm was probably
unwarranted, as the raging storms that lie beneath
the "comprehensive strategic partnership of
coordination" between China and Russia would
suggest.
Ambassador M K
Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included
the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and
Turkey.
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