(Crossposted at My Left Wing.)
With the Iraqi people in the process of kicking the U.S.’s ass, we on the left should nevertheless avoid thinking excessively ‘direly’ (if that’s the word) about the decline of U.S. power. The old warhorse still has a lot of kick. I was reminded of this yesterday by M K Bhadrakumar’s excellent AsiaTimes article, US shadow over China-Russia ties. Bhadrakumar examines the differing perspectives of Russia and China toward the U.S. The most telling paragraph is one he finds in a recent article published in the People’s Daily. It summarizes a perhaps idealized understanding of China-Russia relations (emphasis added):
“The two countries [China and Russia] are close without having to rely on each other. They protect their own dignity with no intention to subvert the other; they manage to resolve conflicts of interest through negotiations on an equal footing … and they are both keen on developing bilateral ties with the US, the only superpower in the world today, while opposing unilateralism.”
So China at least is not the cavalry, …
… come to rescue the world from U.S. military imperialism. Frankly, it knows its place in the world. And, actually, China has good relations with the U.S., and sees keeping them strong as vital to its immediate future. Similarly, China is not ready to form an alliance with Russia, Iran and other energy-rich nations on the outs with the U.S. In fact, energy-poor but economically strong China shares interests with the similarly situated U.S. This is the way China is doing things now and in the immediate future (though of course who knows what will be the case in 15 years).
Here’s a Cliff’s Notes of Bhadrakumar’s essay:
1. China has good relations with Russia, and is moving to improve them. It has better relations with the U.S., and these relations are far more important (especially the economic component) to China.
2. The U.S. has a relation of mutual dependency with China. It has nothing like this in its relations with Russia, and so it has an aggressive policy of `containment’ (expansion of U.S. power) toward Russia, but a far more passive relationship to China.
3. Russia is without a doubt an oil/gas superpower, but this concerns China perhaps more than it attracts China to Russia.
4. In sum, China-Russia are not in the process of forming a new `superpower’ alliance (with India? Iran?) to counterbalance U.S. power.
5. Russia will increasingly be diplomatically isolated and ‘contained’ if it doesn’t accommodate itself to the power of the U.S. and the EU, or otherwise break out of Putin’s current ‘aggressive’ approach to energy relations with the economically powerful.
You should read the entire article at atimes.com, but here are a couple more paragraphs:
… a senior researcher with the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences captured the new mood in Beijing when he wrote in early January, “The Sino-US relationship is moving beyond the bilateral scope to cover regional and global security and economic matters. Exchanges at various levels and between diverse sectors, trade and economic cooperation in particular, are going ahead in a big way. By all accounts, the two countries share more interests and are becoming increasingly dependent on one another strategically and economically.”
Beijing and Washington are on the same page over the North Korea nuclear issue, in pressuring Iran to give up its uranium-enrichment program, on the imperative need of stabilizing Iraq, and in shoring up the stability of the pro-Western Arab regimes in the Middle East. Ironically, even as Putin was berating the US for its hegemonistic ambitions in global politics at the Munich security conference in February, Chinese commentators were discerning “subtle changes” in US foreign policy moving away from the doctrine of neo-conservatism, and were welcoming the “pragmatism [that is] beginning to prevail in the White House”.
