With the dust of the US presidential election settled, the media are caught in wild guesses and debate about what president-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy will be like, in particular, about the future of US-China and US-Russia relationships.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation between China and Russia as well as the 20th anniversary of the establishment of their strategic partnership of coordination, so it is only natural for the two getting closer to each other than ever. Some Americans, however, are somewhat concerned about this.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States also experienced a period of close relations. During that period, China still worked hard to develop friendly cooperative relations with the US.
Memories are still fresh. In the first years of the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, sought to develop goodwill with the US. Many even believed that Russia favored cultivating the US over its relations with China. Russia then was very weak and still declining, so Yeltsin bet big on the US and Europe to help rejuvenate his country, hoping that Russia would get capital and technological assistance from the US and Western European countries.
However, the reality was very discouraging: The US showed little trust in Russia. First, it was yet to be convinced that Yeltsin could stay in power and the political situation would not be reversed, because the influence of the Russian Communist Party was then still too big to be ignored. Second, the US believed that Russia, as a big power emerging from the debris of the Soviet Union, still had a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, the biggest territory in the world and rich natural resources. Washington was very much worried that if Russia regained vitality, it could become another Soviet Union. Therefore, the assistance promised was very small or just lip services. And at the same time, the US sped up the eastward expansion of NATO. During the period when Yevgeny Primakov served as the foreign minister and prime minister, Russia strengthened its cooperation with China. In April 1996, the two countries signed the partnership of strategic coordination based on equality and benefit and orientation towards the 21st century.
In March 1999, the US launched the Kosovo War, and this made Yeltsin give up his last hope in the US. Beset by domestic and international troubles, Yeltsin resigned, and Vladimir Putin came to power.
Putin knew very well that the rejuvenation of Russia called for cooperation with the US. In November 2001, he made his first visit to the US, and issued a joint statement with President George W. Bush on “a new relationship”. The statement said Russia and the US “have overcome the legacy of the Cold War. Neither country regards the other as an enemy or threat.” It also put forward the proposal of “the creation of a new strategic framework to ensure the mutual security of the United States and Russia, and the world community”.
In May 2002, Bush paid an official visit to Russia, and signed with Putin the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions as well as the joint declaration on the new strategic relationship. The declaration said that the two countries have “embarked upon the path of new relations for the 21st century, and committed to developing a relationship based on friendship, cooperation, common values, trust, openness and predictability”. Bush said his visit helped the two countries discard distrust in and suspicion of each other left from the Cold War era, and their “weapons are no longer pointed at each other”, and Russia-US relations had moved into a new era of friendship. Putin also said that the US was no longer an enemy, and the relations between the two countries had been elevated onto a new stage.
These showed that Putin once had high expectations of the US, and the two sides even used a high-profile term — “new strategic relations”. Still, China had no discomfort about the rapprochement between the US and Russia, and instead was willing to see further improvements in their relations.
After the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, Russia and the US also cooperated in the war against terror. Russia tolerated the US in setting up airbases in its traditional sphere of influence, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
A series of moves by the US, however, angered Putin, causing confrontations between the two countries and a deterioration of their relations. They included further eastward expansion of NATO, the “color revolutions” plotted in the Central Asian region, the deployment of anti-missile systems in some East European countries, and endless challenges to Russia’s vested interests in the Middle East. In early 2014, the Kiev independent square uprising rekindled historical animosity between Russia and Ukraine, and this offered a chance for Putin to take back the Crimea. The uprising failed its anticipated goal and Ukraine was split, with the grave consequences still lingering.
At a time when US-Russia relations became increasingly complicated, Sino-Russian relations made new progress.
China and Russia have been developing good neighborly and friendly cooperative relations, based on their own needs and not targeted at any third country. If any third party, however, plots against Russia or China, their strategic partnership of coordination should, in essence, play a role in preventing and coping with any threats from the third country.
China, while developing relations with Russia, also advocates forging a new model of major-country relations with the US under the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation. This is the well-known pursuit of China.
Therefore, there is no need for the US to worry about the rapprochement between China and Russia. And the same applies to Russia, and it should not be concerned about the development of a new model of major-country relations between China and the US.
At a time of power transition in the US, Putin and Trump already have sung praise towards each other, and Putin showed a posture of being friendly with Trump. Trump, for the benefits of the US, would naturally adjust his foreign policy towards Russia, and what remains to be seen is how fast and to what extent the adjustments will be made.
The relations among China, Russia and the US have direct and significant bearing on the global situation. The three countries should form a kind of synergy to promote the development of the global economy, cope with natural disasters, fight against terrorism, and forge and defend a just and rational international order. This will not only be beneficial to their own interests, but also conducive to world peace, stability and development.
