Summary :
Over the past few weeks, Russia and China have engaged in
intense, manic-depressive foreign policy, shifting between sullen
quiet, to near war-frenzy, to friendly cooperation. Before one
prescribes medications, this behavior should be seen as the
natural, terminal maneuvers of powers that are trying to get the
West's attention and are not quite sure what to do with that
attention once they get it. It is not that the behavior is not
ominous. It represents the process of great powers going into
opposition to a super-power. But the behavior is the symptom,
not the problem itself. The problem is that the structure of the
international system dictates an anti-American Russo-Chinese
alliance, and very little can stop that.
Analysis
It has been fascinating over the past two weeks to observe the
gyrations of China and Russia, as they carry out their terminal
maneuvers on the way to an anti-American, anti-Western
alliance. Right after the bombing of Kosovo began Russia went
ballistic, in its more extreme moments even threatening the
United States with nuclear war. China remained sullen but
relatively quiet. Then Russia turned mellow, trying to work with
the West while China went ballistic over the bombing of the
Embassy and a host of other issues. It is amazing the extremes
at which both countries are operating their foreign policies at the
moment.
The intense mood swings are, of course, calculated and have
rational goals. Russia and China individually are trying to
achieve three things. First, they want to get the attention and
concern of the United States and the major powers linked to the
United States, like Germany and Japan. Second, they want to
generate a substantial level of concern within the United States
concerning the direction of relations with each of them. Russia
and China both hope to increase their leverage within the
relationship and ideally extract political and, more important,
financial concessions from a concerned United States that is
hoping to appease them and avoid a new Cold War. Finally,
they hope to create serious fear among America's allies, like
Japan and Germany, concerning trends in U.S. foreign policy, in
the hope of being able to split the American alliance, further
weakening the United States.
Thus, periodically, each generates a major confrontation with the
United States in which it appears that a catastrophic collision is
about to take place. They then allow themselves to be placated
by the United States and its allies, extracting economic
concessions in return for politico-military quiescence. The trick
for each is to recreate the image of the Cold War as a reminder
of the bad old days. The Russian announcement that the Black
Sea Fleet would sortie, and mobs of Chinese hurling stones at
the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, all served to remind everyone how
bad things could get. That set the stage for the next phase,
which was bargaining on the price for not letting things get that
bad.
We do not believe that Russia and China are cooperating on
this. Quite the contrary. In a certain sense, they are now
competitors for the West's limited attentions. Particularly in
Washington, where the ability to handle multiple foreign policy
issues is at a historical low point, getting priority treatment
requires threats of nuclear war and riots in front of embassies.
The similarity in Russia's and China's behavior has much more
to do with the similarity of their strategic and economic positions
relative to the United States than it does to do with conspiracy.
Both need the same thing from the United States and the West:
financial help and collaboration. Neither will get as much as they
want and need, based strictly on economic considerations. Each
needs to find levers to extract more. Thus, in an odd sense, they
are competitors, posturing intensely to try to get attention and
help.
Consider Russia's maneuvering. Immediately after the beginning
of the Serbian war, it appeared that Primakov's Russia was
about to launch a new Cold War. Yeltsin brilliantly allowed
Primakov to position Russia in complete and hostile opposition
to NATO. He then brought Chernomyrdin out of retirement.
Chernomyrdin, an old stalwart of the reform days, appeared to
be a dinosaur out of the past. Chernomyrdin delivered two
messages. The first was that there was still a chance at reform in
Russia. The second was that Russia would help NATO in
Kosovo in return for financial aid. Suddenly, $4.5 billion was
shaken loose; not enough to bring Milosevic to the peace table,
but enough to cause Yeltsin to dump Primakov and appoint a
new Prime Minister of ambiguous ideology. Outmaneuvering the
communists in the Duma by getting Zhironovsky to double cross
them (the price for that is not yet clear), Yeltsin is now in a
position to bargain with the West. Indeed, Michael Camdessus,
head of the IMF, said on Sunday that the IMF was now ready
to work with Russia on additional funding.
Of course, Camdessus also said that Russia would have to
institute new reforms in order to get that money. The new Prime
Minister said on Sunday "Everything is simple here. Once the
Duma passes legislation and endorses the new government,
loans will start coming." Stepashin, of course, is still euphoric
at
the prospect of becoming Prime Minister, and he is not thinking
as clearly as he should. Obviously, the Duma must pass new
legislation in order to get the IMF to grant new loans. But that
legislation will include massive austerity in an already
impoverished Russia, as well as a battle for taxes with oligarchs
busy shipping money to the West. If it were really that easy, it
would have been done months ago.
This is the problem with all of this maneuvering. It is pointless.
No matter how much money the West provides, Russia cannot
recover from its problems because those problems are deeply
rooted structural and cultural defects in the Russian system that
make it impossible for it to, if you will, metabolize money
effectively. Put differently, if it doesn't turn into capital, it
doesn't become productive. Money sent to Russia remains
money to be spent on imported luxuries, used to bribe
opposition politicians, or stolen. It does not create economic
growth. Thus, the maneuvering gets the West's attention
followed by ineffective assistance, inertia, and the return to the
crisis stage.
China is a similar case, albeit far from as hopeless economically.
Nevertheless, after a series of entirely unsatisfactory bilateral
meetings at several levels, tremendous criticism from the United
States on human rights, the investigation of Chinese financial aid
to Bill Clinton, the espionage scandal and a general decline in
relations, the Chinese saw the bombing of their embassy as a
marvelous opportunity to redefine their relations with the United
States. Taking a page from Moscow's book, they recreated the
world prior to the rise of Deng Xiaping, complete with howling
mobs and resolutions condemning American hegemonism. The
bombing of the Embassy, had it happened in 1991 in Baghdad,
would have been managed with a harsh protest and an apology.
In 1999, it was turned into opera by a China hoping to make its
point.
That got the U.S.'s attention but, as with Russia, it was not clear
what the Chinese wanted that the U.S. and the West could give
them. Everyone rushed forward to see what could be done
about World Trade Organization membership for China.
However, given the structural dynamics of 1999 as opposed to
1995 and given China's unofficial economic crisis, it was not
clear what WTO membership would do for China. It was also
unclear what else could be rationally offered. Massive new
investments on the order of the earlier years of the decade are
hardly likely when the U.S. economy is so attractive and
investors in China are merely hoping to break even at some
point.
Nevertheless, China's Cold War posturing is every bit as
impressive as was Russia's. For example, the May 13 South
China Morning Post reported that China is abandoning the low-
key foreign policy established by Deng Xiaoping and moving
toward a more aggressive approach. The shift in policy,
unnamed sources said in the report, was made following the
NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. It was
partially in response to student demonstrations against the U.S.
Embassy in China. The source said, "In internal talks, Politburo
members expressed fears that the students would next stage
protests against a 'weak central Government' unless Beijing
counters threats to national security." The idea that China would
take a knee-jerk decision in reaction to a group of students
throwing rocks at a foreign embassy and totally reverse a foreign
policy that has stood for ten years is unlikely. Instead, China is
using the opportunity presented by the anti-American
demonstrations to declare to the world that the U.S. and NATO
are forcing China into a new role, despite the fact that it has
already been pursuing this new policy for some time.
In response to China's overstated warnings of being forced by
its own citizens into a more aggressive stance, the U.S. is
planning to send in a former admiral as the new ambassador to
China. The choice of a military man to take the position reflects
the administration's view of the potential Chinese threat. More
importantly, the prospective nominee for ambassador to China is
Admiral Joseph Prueher, commander of the U.S. Pacific Force
from 1996 to March 1999. While Prueher was instrumental in
expanding Chinese-U.S. military cooperation and exchanges, he
was also in charge in 1996 when the U.S. sent carriers into the
Taiwan Strait to demonstrate U.S. resolve vis-…-vis Chinese
interference in Taiwan's elections. This makes Prueher a prime
candidate in dealing with China who is unlikely to be strenuously
opposed by the Republican-dominated Congress.
The real danger here is that during these periodic, ritual chest-
thumping episodes, the situation might genuinely get out of hand.
Yeltsin skillfully reigned in the anti-Western forces he helped
unleash. The old fox never ceases to amaze us. However, he
will go to the well one time too many, and unleash forces that
even he can't control. The same is true in China. The
leadership can whip up anti-American frenzy on demand. It is
not clear that they will always be able to control it. In the
end, it
won't matter. The tendency toward anti-Americanism and
therefore to some form of alliance is, we believe, irreversible.
The path toward that end, however, is twisted and quite noisy.
The noise, whether from Moscow or Beijing, is not the real
issue. There is lightning behind the thunder.