Focus
As U.S.-Russia ties strengthen, China lags behind
By Ralph A. Cossa
China seems very pleased with the outcome of the George W. Bush-Jiang Zemin summit meeting in Shanghai on Oct. 19 along the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' meeting.
Advertiser library photo • Oct. 19, 2001
This was not because a great deal was accomplished, but because of Jiang's extremely modest definition of what constituted a "successful" meeting. All Beijing apparently sought was a photo opportunity and a new slogan. Success was achieved, as the Chinese press touted the willingness by both sides to seek a new "constructive relationship of cooperation."
Presidents Bush and Jiang Zemin shook hands in Shanghai, a cordial yet formal act that sums up U.S.-China relations to date.
This is not insignificant. Both Washington and Beijing were eager to show that relations were on a positive trajectory after the April 1 collision between a Chinese fighter and American reconnaissance plane and a variety of other contentious issues, including continuing American arms sales to Taiwan, got the Bush administration's relationship with China off to a rocky start. The mere fact that President Bush took time out from commanding his war on terrorism to travel to China was seen as an important signal, even if accumulating international support for that campaign remained a priority during the abbreviated visit.
Slogans are important to China. The operative slogan before the APEC visit was candidate Bush's "strategic competitor" label; a phrase generally avoided by administration spokesmen after Jan. 20, but still featured prominently in the press when describing Sino-U.S. relations. As long as Bush was willing to state in Shanghai that he sought a "constructive and cooperative" relationship — which he did (although he added the word "candid") — Beijing was prepared to declare the visit a success.
What Jiang was apparently not prepared to do during his first face-to-face visit with Bush was move Sino-U.S. relations to a higher level, as his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, has done. While the Bush-Jiang meeting was described as "cordial" and "friendly," the personal chemistry exhibited between Bush and Putin was nowhere to be found. In Shanghai, Bush and Putin took advantage of their third face-to-face meeting to move U.S.-Russia relations even closer. One Russian diplomat described the meeting as creating favorable conditions for "forming a new framework for strategic relations" between Washington and Moscow.
Putin sent strong signals that Russia is ready to modify or "stretch" the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to address U.S. security concerns. His flexibility was quickly rewarded by Washington's announcement on Oct. 25 that it was delaying testing of those elements of its missile defense system that could violate the treaty. Meanwhile, both sides also seemed closer to an agreement over deeper cuts in their respective nuclear arsenals, an arms control breakthrough likely to be formally announced during Putin's visit to Bush's Texas ranch this month.
China, by contrast, remains inflexible on the issue of missile defense. Its unwillingness to break the standoff over implementation of a nonproliferation agreement signed with the Clinton administration last year clearly disappointed Washington.
This doesn't mean Washington was dissatisfied with the summit's outcome. The Bush team went into it with relatively low expectations, as well. But Washington did appear disappointed in regard to its primary mission: While Bush did receive a Chinese endorsement of his war against terrorism and a commitment from Beijing to cooperate on stemming financial flows to terrorists, Jiang avoided endorsing the ongoing Afghanistan campaign. He felt compelled to stress caveats about avoiding innocent casualties — an American objective, but one that is impossible to achieve 100 percent — and ensuring continuing U.N. Security Council endorsement (a forum where China enjoys veto authority).
Jiang also expressed support for establishing a medium- and long-term mechanism for anti-terrorism cooperation between China and the United States. However, little in the way of useful, operationally oriented intelligence information sharing has yet to materialize, and China seems most intent on ensuring that any international war on terrorism includes condemnation of Islamic Uighur separatists in China's western Xinjiang province. Washington seems somewhat more sympathetic (or at least tolerant) toward China's terrorist concerns (and similar Russian concerns over Islamic separatist activity in Chechnya). But Bush did have a caveat of his own: "The war on terrorism," he asserted in Shanghai, "must never be an excuse to persecute minorities." (This is a message Bush has also delivered at home, aimed at preventing a backlash against the Muslim community in the United States.)
Secretary of State Colin Powell noted in Shanghai that, as far as U.S.-Russia relations were concerned, "not only is the Cold War over, the post-Cold War period is also over."
Meanwhile, Sino-U.S. relations still seem largely mired in what China has described as a "Cold War mentality," with both sides apparently willing to settle for considerably less. As Bush and Putin start working toward establishment of a post post-Cold War new world order, Beijing increasingly runs the risk of being left behind.
Ralph A. Cossa is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS (pacforum@lava.net), a Honolulu-based nonprofit research institute affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington; and senior editor of Comparative Connections, a quarterly electronic journal.
