More bluff on Sino-Russian ties

This is the second of two articles analyzing the recent Russo- Chinese summit in Beijing. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin suggests that, there is more bluff than substance in the rapprochement between the two major powers.

HONG KONG (JP): The Russo-Chinese summit reminded everyone that a very basic mutual interest brings the two country closer together: Russia needs export markets for its arms, while the Chinese military needs to upgrade its technology via Russian weapons imports.

So far, the most visible example of this trade-off has been the sale of two squadrons of SU-27 jet fighters to the Chinese, roughly 50 aircraft. The sale of the last 24 of these jets was apparently not confirmed at the summit, as some expected it to be. A further contract, under which an early model of the SU-27 would be produced in larger numbers within China itself, also did not receive endorsement at the summit.

This was surprising. The present limits of Sino-Russian rapprochement quickly become visible. The two contracts are probably held up because China would like to manufacture more advanced models, while the Russian military is understandably wary of giving China too big a lift up the technological ladder.

There may be another deal in the works on submarines but, again, the Russians are likely to go on selling the relatively old and slow "Kilo" diesel class of patrol submarines, rather than more sophisticated models which Beijing would probably prefer. Again, nothing was decided in time for the Jiang-Yeltsin summit.

Perhaps the imbalance of frustration, and the limited Russo- Chinese ability to influence the balance of power, are best illustrated by the contracts that were signed earlier in the 1990s and have so far not been fulfilled.

One of these related to a Russian nuclear power station to be built in China, in the northeastern Liaoning province. Another concerned a bridge to be built across the river border at Blagoveschensk. These and other projects have got nowhere because Russia, unlike Japan or the U.S., cannot provide concessionary finance for the projects, which is apparently what China expects. Either that, or China does not rate the projects important enough to pay for them itself.

This lays bare the power reality that limits Sino-Russian rapprochement: mutual economic weakness.

Simply put, the Russian ruble is sustained in large part by International Monetary Fund backing and Western finance, while the Chinese currency has strength in large part because of Beijing's huge trade surpluses earned in the open American market.

No such surpluses can be earned by China in the Russian market. Russian manufacturing industry fears being swamped by cheaper, better quality imports from China. Instead, it is the Russians who expect to earn foreign currency from their trade with China. Russo-Chinese trade is one-seventh of Sino-American trade, and has been declining in recent years.

The numerous agreements signed at the summit, particularly those concerning the mutual border, will be watched carefully -- when, and if, their full texts are released -- for indications of just how much of the Sino-Russian border has been demarcated, and how much of the border remains too problematical for easy resolution.

The pentagonal summit on April 26 produced a Good Neighbor Treaty which appears to be a mixture of a non-aggression pact and a set of confidence-building measures. These measures further reduce the risk of a conflict which is now almost non-existent anyway.

All told, there was far more symbolism than substance in the Sino-Russian summit. The mutual inferiority complex clearly shone through as each handed the other politically points, regarding issues that do not currently concern them, and which they can do little to influence. China promised to support Russia over Chechnya and the eastward push of NATO, while Russia endorsed the "correctness" of China's stand on Taiwan and Tibet.

None of this means that the summit was without importance. Yet the uncritical and effusive tone of much foreign reporting of the get-together was wholly unjustified. Too many hailed the creation of a new power bloc without stopping to calculate how much real power resided in it.

For example, Time magazine naively enthused that "for once, the achievements were as grand as the rhetoric . . . . China now has a "Russia card" and Yeltsin has one with China written on it".

The frustrating question remains whether playing those cards will have any real value. China can play the Russian card for all it is worth, but Yeltsin is as unlikely to help China force Taiwan's reunification as Nikita Khrushchev was in the 1958 Taiwan Straits crisis. China knows this.

Russia can play the China card for all it is worth but that will neither end Russia's economic woes nor bring the recalcitrant Chechens to heel. Were Moscow to play the China card too vigorously, NATO might be inclined to expand eastwards sooner rather than later. Russia knows this.

For all that, the imbalance of Sino-Russian mutual frustration -- and their balance of relative weakness -- together have one great merit: it creates a kind of Sino-Russian equality which did not exist before and which promises a reduction of tensions -- which is to everybody's advantage.