Truth behind Sino-Russian ties

Some observers saw the recent Russo-Chinese summit in Beijing as signalling a major development in power politics, and even a return to the Sino-Russian friendship of the 1950s. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin is skeptical of such analyses and suggests that, so far, there is more bluff than substance in the rapprochement between the two major powers. This is the first of two articles.

HONG KONG (JP): In 1972, when President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai issued their hard-won Sino-American communique in Shanghai, it changed the world's balance of power.

In 1996, when President Boris Yeltsin and President Jiang Zemin signed their hard-won Good Neighbor Treaty in Shanghai, together with three Central Asian Presidents, it illustrated an imbalance of frustration.

While numerous agreements were signed during the summit in Beijing, and a subsequent brief pentagonal summit in Shanghai, the result of Yeltsin's three-day trip to China was to foster a further tactical improvement in Russo-Chinese ties rather than any major step towards the "strategic partnership" of which the two major powers loudly boasted.

More than anything else, the lengths to which China went, during Yeltsin's three-day stay, to play down or to ignore its very real differences with non-communist Russia, and the limitations of the current Sino-Russian relationship, clearly indicated the frustration of China's communist rulers.

Beijing wants so much to be treated as a Great Power, yet seems incapable of behaving in such a way as to naturally earn such respect. So it tried, through Yeltsin's visit, to gain that esteem via smoke and mirrors instead.

For example, the installation of a Moscow-Beijing hotline was hailed as an achievement. Amidst the smoke, few noticed that Russia had taken the trouble to quietly install a Moscow-Delhi hotline two weeks earlier. Fewer still recalled that hotlines are put in place more to inhibit conflict than to increase harmony.

Ironically, were China, in the same way, to play down or to ignore some of its very real differences with the United States -- instead of assuming a hostility that does not yet exist in U.S. official policy -- there could be the same "improvement" in Sino-American relations as there has been in Russo-Chinese ties.

National frustration is no less real for the Russians. China seeks to climb up the hierarchical power ladder. Russia knows it has made a sudden descent down it. The Soviet Empire is no more - a fact underlined by the presence of the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Shanghai, signing for their obligations along what was once the wholly bilateral Sino- Soviet border.

The status which Moscow once expected, but could not always command, as the home of the first communist revolution, has disappeared. Russia can no longer afford, let alone bring to bear, the overwhelming military power which, after its brief deployment in the 1969 border war, sent China scurrying towards Nixon's embrace.

For all that, Yeltsin seemed to be less inhibited by changed circumstances, as he unashamedly used smoke and mirrors to blatantly promote his re-election prospects, denouncing Russian communists as his enemies to a communist audience in Beijing -- and then trying to make up for it by distinguishing between Russian communist "fanatics" and Chinese communist "pragmatists" while in Shanghai.

The Chinese would obviously have preferred it if this summit had taken place about six months ago, soon after Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to the United States last autumn. But it was postponed because of Yeltsin's health, and his lengthy stay in hospital, owing to heart problems.

Then, at least, Jiang would have briefly conveyed the image of being able to speak to the two other sides of the Sino-American- Russian diplomatic triangle. Today it has been Yeltsin who has communicated that image.

Clearly, at the moment, Russia has better ties with the U.S. and with China, than Washington and Beijing have with each other.

On the one hand, Yeltsin came to Beijing from the nine-nation nuclear summit in Moscow (the Group of Seven plus Russia and the Ukraine) together with his bilateral meetings with Clinton and other world leaders, including Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

On the other hand, as Clinton flew from Tokyo to Moscow, he ostentatiously avoided China, not even using Chinese airspace on the Tokyo-Moscow flight of Air Force One. While visiting Beijing is evidently no longer considered an advantage in U.S. presidential election campaigns, for Yeltsin all the summitry has been a windfall, as he pursues his come-from-far-behind reelection bid with gusto.

But with resurgent Russian nationalistic posturing now a major factor in the ongoing presidential election, and with border agreements arousing emotional controversy in the Russian Far East, Yeltsin also had to tread warily.

Likewise, Jiang was less forthcoming with his Russian guest on his reelection prospects than were the Group of Seven leaders in Moscow, lest he open himself to charges of hurting the chances of the currently front-running communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov. In the current hard-line atmosphere within the Chinese Communist Party, a communist President, and a Russian communist restoration, would obviously be preferred.

Beneath his external bonhomie, and frank comments on Russian communists, Yeltsin had almost certainly not forgotten that when he was standing on a tank trying to put down an attempted coup in Moscow, China was busy recognizing the plotters.