| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"disseminator" |
| Date: |
18 Dec 2004 04:10:10 PM |
| Object: |
New Sino-Russian Alliance while US tends petty ME thugs |
from: TomPaine.com December 16, 2004
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/laughing_dragon_dancing_bear.php
Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear
Ray McGovern
While Bush, the neocons and centrist Democrats reinforce their
groupthink over terrorism, China and Russia are proving that great
powers are not done making history. Ray McGovern picks up the story
that American papers have been slow to grasp: China and Russia have
agreed to conduct joint military activities, in China, in 2005.
Ray McGovern began his 27-year career with the CIA as the analyst for
Soviet relations with China and Southeast Asia. He is on the
Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
The most striking result of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's
four-day visit to China this week was the agreement announced Monday
to hold "substantial military exercises on Chinese territory in 2005"
(quote from Russia's Interfax news agency). This was Ivanov's second
trip to Beijing this year, and Chinese President Hu Jintao used the
occasion to assert, "Sino-Russian strategic coordination has attained
an unprecedentedly high level."
The agreement to hold joint exercises is, in fact, unprecedented,
and Hu went on to express satisfaction at the growth in relations
between the two armies. Not that you would know any of this from our
lethargic press.
The Chinese and Russian news services played up the story, and AP
and Reuters correspondents promptly filed detailed reports from
Beijing. But most U.S. print media - The Washington Post, for
example - ignored the story. The New York Times Tuesday cut it down
to two sentences tacked onto the end of a roundup titled "World
Briefing" on page A6.
Nevertheless, it is a highly significant development, pointing out
how major regional powers are reacting to the policy and actions of
what they perceive to be the world's big bully.
Unparalleled Heights
The announcement of the military exercises planned for next year
comes not long after Soviet President Vladimir Putin, while visiting
Beijing in October, said bilateral relations had reached
"unparalleled heights." During his visit, Putin signed an agreement
that settled the last of the disputes along the 7,500-kilometer
border between the two countries.
Those disputes had led to armed clashes in the '60s and '70s,
particularly in areas where the frontier is defined by the main
channel of border rivers, which meander. Islands ended up being
claimed by both sides. The overall political backdrop, though, was
China's claim to 1.5 million square kilometers taken from China under
what it called "unequal treaties" dating back to the Treaty of
Nerchinsk in 1689. These irredentist claims, a staple of Chinese
anti-Soviet rhetoric, have been muted.
Putin's October visit also produced an agreement to jointly develop
Russian energy reserves, an agreement by which China hopes to help
ensure the supply of fuel for its burgeoning economy. Over the past
decade Sino-Russian bilateral trade has grown by leaps and bounds.
Most important, China has become Russia's arms industry's premier
customer. This year, the Chinese are buying about $2 billion in
weapons, many of them top of the line. For Russia, these sales are
an important source of export earnings and keep key segments of its
defense industry afloat. Cut off from arms sales from the West,
Beijing has come to rely on Russia more and more for sophisticated
arms and technology.
Fears Foreseen
For those familiar with the acerbic nature of Russian-Chinese
relations over the years, the announcement of joint military
exercises should be a wake-up call. The switch from extreme hostility
to rapprochement is, in my view, a sea change in the broader
strategic equation. The fact that the improvement in ties has been
incremental, at least up until now, makes it no less real - or less of
a potential threat to U.S. interests.
NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo in 1999 had already
heightened the need felt by China and Russia to buttress mutual
security ties. The experience eroded the confidence each had in
its ability to advance and protect its interests by using its veto
at the United Nations Security Council. That confidence suffered a
far more serious blow when the United States and UK decided to attack
Iraq without explicit Security Council approval. This created even
stronger incentive for Russia and China to quicken their
rapprochement.
Pre-9/11 progress in political, economic and military relations
reached a highpoint with the conclusion of a Sino-Russian treaty
signed by Presidents Putin and Jiang Zemin in Moscow in July 2001.
That treaty reflected a mutual understanding that the two countries
need to collaborate closely if they are to dilute what each sees as
U.S. efforts to dominate the post-Cold War international order. The
invasion of Iraq in March 2003 greatly increased the incentive for
such collaboration, which has now been rendered more tangible by the
scheduling of joint military exercises next year.
Fears Confirmed
The Russians and Chinese look on the quicksand in which U.S. forces
are trying to stay afloat in Iraq with mixed feelings: alarm at what
they see as unconstrained, unpredictable U.S. behavior, and
Schadenfreude at the fiasco brought about by ineptitude on the part
of senior civilian defense officials and careerism among the generals,
many of whom know better but have not the spine to tell their
superiors that the war in Iraq cannot be won.
What seems clear is that because of the U.S./U.K. attack on Iraq,
China and Russia intend to give each other meaningful political
support if Washington embarks on a new military adventure - against
Iran, for example. That same assurance of mutual support and
cooperation could also serve to embolden the Russians or Chinese
for adventurism of their own - vis-à-vis Taiwan, for example, or
Ukraine - taking advantage of the fact that the Umited States is
pinned down in and preoccupied with Iraq.
Pandora's World
The lid is now off Pandora's preventive box. Just before leaving for
Beijing, Defense Minister Ivanov made it clear that Russia "reserves
the right to carry out preventive strikes with conventional weaponry
on terror bases anywhere they are found in the world." Indeed, it
may be a short step to applying the "terrorist" label to those
wearing orange in Kiev.
Like subterranean geological plates that shift imperceptibly,
changes with immense political repercussions can occur so gradually
as to be imperceptible - until the earthquake. Over the past several
years, there has been rather broad consensus among specialists that,
despite the gradual rapprochement between Russia and China, both
remain more interested in developing good relations with the United
States than with each other.
This may no longer be the case. If it is not, our leaders ought to
be given this bad news. Those who work on these questions would, I
believe, be well advised to get together, give the issues fresh
scrutiny and spell out what their findings imply for U.S. policy.
There has always been a mix of challenge and opportunity in
U.S.-Russian-Chinese triangular diplomacy. But with Condoleezza
Rice in the role Henry Kissinger once played so deftly, it is
possible that the dangers will escape notice and the opportunities
will be squandered.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/laughing_dragon_dancing_bear.php
--
http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.amconmag.com/
http://www.counterpunch.org/
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
.
|
|
| User: "disseminator" |
|
| Title: Re: New Sino-Russian Alliance while US tends petty ME thugs |
19 Dec 2004 07:36:00 PM |
|
|
"Dave Simpson" <david_l_simpson@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:1103502779.430401.273550@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
The Left fights any US confrontation of its adversaries, preferring
surrender and self-destruction.
Any criticism from the Left of the USA for not being confrontational
enough is not only ironic and hypocritical, but hollow.
That's a bit simplistic Dave,
I don't think that was true of Slick Willie who
was as good as the NeoCONs at having NATO creep
into "New Europe". The jest of the article didn't
even center around "not being confrontational enough".
I'm not even coming from the left despite
the fact that much of the anti Iraq War
energy comes from the left.
My point, as expressed in the header, is that the
US suffers from Mideast centrism to the detriment
of our national interests.
As so far as "coddling the Chinese" is concerned:
(Freddie1's quote)
The US, in general follows policies that serve to unravel
the Sino-Russian differences that we were able to capitalize
on in previous Republican administrations....when I was still
a Republican. Sometimes maintaining relations with foreign
countries prevents confrontation.
from: TomPaine.com December 16, 2004
Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear by:Ray McGovern
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/laughing_dragon_dancing_bear.php
--
http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.amconmag.com/
http://www.counterpunch.org/
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
