One single summit of two little giants

By Daniel Broessler

PRAGUE (DPA): Appearances can be deceptive -- when Russian President Vladimir Putin receives his Chinese opposite number Jiang Zemin Monday, for instance, it will be a meeting of giants although both men are relatively short.

The president of the largest nation on earth will be sitting together with the president of the most populous one. Together Putin and Jiang govern 1.4 billion people on an area of more than 26 million square kilometers.

When they meet, the world will see two powerful men in a mighty good mood. Jiang, in particular, will not allow his mood to be spoilt by the successful U.S. missile defense test. The Chinese leader has been walking on Mount Olympus since the International Olympic Committee chose Beijing as venue for the 2008 games. The decision was made in Moscow.

The goodwill of the gods seems to be gracing Chinese-Russian relations. Putin and Jiang will sign an agreement on "good neighborliness, friendship and co-operation." A similar agreement existed previously -- in the Communist stone age -- but that didn't keep Beijing and Moscow from sharing a deep, socialist, fraternal hate.

The new version also does not make real buddies out of the Chinese and the Russians. Probably, the only clear thing in this document of vague, well-sounding phrases will be the signatures. Nevertheless, the agreement is, from a Russian point of view, the result of a remarkable continuity, a cautious rapprochement with China started by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, continued by Boris Yeltsin and advanced by Vladimir Putin.

But, on closer examination, the world actually has no reason to fear a new alliance of the giants. The first things that come to the eye are the small numbers. The two countries conduct less trade with each other than one would guess from the 4,200- kilometer-long mutual border.

Russia's share of Chinese foreign trade -- and China's share of Russia's -- is moving somewhere in the lower single-digit per- cent-range. Both countries have more important partners available to them, one of whom is the United States. When Putin and Jiang shake hands, they will be looking out of the corner of their eyes towards Washington. Russia and China are not a couple; rather they are part of an eternal triangle with the United States.

Putin and Zemin agree on at least one thing and join voices to castigate America's arrogance, protest against President George W. Bush's plans for a missile defense shield and prophesy an arms race.

Their Eurasian liaison is clearly intended to impress the United States. For both China and Russia, the U.S. is more important to them than each other individually. If Washington were to act worried, the two would have reached a decisive goal in their relationship -- they could hope that the United States would start wooing them both more ardently.

Both call their partnership "strategic" but it is really based on tactics. The strategic interests of the two nations can be only partially reconciled. Putin looks mainly towards the West despite a number of side-glances to the east. There and there alone, in the European Union and in the U.S., he can find the partners with whom he can modernize Russia. Jiang looks skeptically in every direction, on the other hand.

This applies for Russia too. The traditional Chinese mistrust towards Moscow could not be counterbalanced by tons of contracts. China forges no alliances; it enters relationships of expediency.

And the purpose is clear. China, the power on the way up, met Russia at the halfway mark, on the way down. The falling Russian star proved useful for the acsender. Russia sells weapons to China and provides arms know-how. If China succeed in becoming a hegemonial power in Eastern Asia, then part of that achievement would be due to Russia.

This is causing some military experts sleepless nights already. Some have been wondering if they aren't nourishing a future enemy. In the missile defense controversy, Russia is also of more use to China than the other way around.

Russia's anger at the U.S. is not the result of genuine fear of war but of fear of even greater loss in status. If Russia's nuclear weapons were to lose only part of their menace because of the U.S. defense shield, another piece of Moscow's status as a world power would crumble, the Russians fear. The Chinese meanwhile have to assume that the shield actually is also directed against them and could serve to protect Taiwan in a possible conflict, for instance.

Chinese and Russians find their real similarities but also conflicts there where they are divided: on their long border. The controversy on its course is almost entirely settled. However, for a long time now, many Russians fear Chinese immigrants even more than Chinese soldiers; hundreds of thousands of Chinese have already moved into the thinly-populated territory east of the Urals.

This immigration will put the agreement on "good neighborliness, friendship and co-operation" to the test one day. However, until then the watchword is: A partnership full of many empty, words is better than the eloquent silence of two enemies.