AN UNFAILING PROPOSAL

The Ukrainian crisis has completely laid bare the geopolitical confrontation between Washington and Moscow on a global scale. In this connection most analysts have begun to talk about the start of a "cold war" period as a minimum. Thanks to the events in Ukraine, the war of sanctions is gathering momentum, the opportunities to discuss differences on the approaches of the world centres of power and at international forums, at international and regional organisations are becoming fewer. Against the backdrop of what is really happening the danger of a serious destabilisation of economic ties in the world and of the formation of new economic and military-political tandems and blocs confronting one another is drastically growing.

In particular, the hypothetical possibility exists of a Sino-Russian or aSino-USA tandem being created, depending on Beijing's choice of tactics. As the interrelations between the West and Moscow deteriorate, the political leadership in Russia is increasingly demonstrating its striving to orientate itself towards Asia. All the more so, since, in spite of all Washington's efforts, Beijing has not, at least up until the present time, joined in the West's sanctions' war against Russia and is hardly likely to change its stand in the very near future.

What is more, within the framework of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Shanghai in May this year, a 30-year-long contract worth roughly 400bn dollars for supplies of Russian gas to China, was signed between the two countries. Moreover, the relevant Russian and Chinese companies have come to an agreement and signed memorandums on creating a broad- fuselage, long-haul airliner capable of competing with "Airbus" and "Boeing", on constructing a frontier bridge across the Amur river [in Siberia] linking these countries.

Of late there have also been more frequent statements about converting as much as half of the Sino-Russian trade turnover into the national currencies. In the context of the latest deepening of economic ties, Beijing is requesting that Moscow relax the Russian federal law on foreign investments in strategic sectors. At the end of August, the chiefs of General Staff of both countries discussed co-operation in the military-technical sphere, the problems of international security and the bolstering of stability in the world. 

It should always be born in mind that Russia and China are also collaborating within the framework of the SCO [The Shanghai Cooperation Organization] (which Moscow is trying to transform into a military-political bloc) and the BRICS (an economic and further a political union [of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] as an alternative to the Western political economic elite). All these instances, which clearly demonstrate a rapprochement between Russia and China, do in principle mainly have a geopolitical concealed meaning. This is precisely why most experts regard the Shanghai gas agreement as a political project concluded in retaliation for the actions of the West, for it is doubtful that Moscow will gain any real economic benefit from it.

The Russian political establishment has repeatedly stressed that cooperation with the Asia-Pacific region and a strategic partnership with China were not conceived to the detrimentof relations with Europe. Nor has Moscow considered it necessary to adhere to similar rhetoric with regard to Washington. This means that the Kremlin admits that it is setting up aSino-Russian tandem to combat America's global leadership. It is quite natural that such a course of development of events is absolutely contrary to the geopolitical interests of the USA. To counter the Kremlin's manoeuvres, it is undertaking attempts not only to extricate itself from a confrontation with Beijing before it reaches a climax, but also to achieve consolidation with China for the purposes of averting a strengthening of Russia's position on a world scale.

From the moment the USSR collapsed until the last few years, while Moscow occupied a pro-Western position or at least did not conduct an anti-Western policy, the USA tried to create a Russian-American tandem to restrain China's dynamically growing economic and military-political might. In this alliance Moscow was regarded as the junior partner, but since the concept of "sympathy-antipathy" is also changeable in the system of international relations, today the USA is not averse to forming a diametrically opposite union with China against Russia.

In particular, in the first 10 days of September, during a trip to China, US national security adviser Susan Rice just lightly touched upon the punctilious instances in Sino-Americanrelations. And, on the contrary, S. Rice sang Beijing's praises, noting that the most serious global challenges at the present timemay not be effectively overcome, if the USA and China do not work together.

In this context, the well-known American geopolitical strategist, ZbigniewBrzezinski recently put forward an extremely interesting concept. He asserts that strategic cooperation between Beijing and Washington may extricate the world from an uncertain situation and that the policy of hampering China's development is pointless. On the contrary, achieving its progress in line with US criteria needs to be assisted. Naturally, if Beijing deviates from this course, an adequate response should follow immediately. Proceeding on this basis, Z. Brzezinski proposes setting up a G2+ formula. This is the union of two world powers, the USA and China, the tandem ofwhich regional leaders can join.

It is noteworthy that in the G2 ("The Big Two", proposed by Brzezinski), the USA's strategic partner, the EU [European Union] is replaced by China. This may be connected with the fact that Washington is disappointed with Brussels' stand regarding Russia with relation to the Ukrainian crisis: the EU did not impose very harsh sanctions; there were differences in the views of the EU member-states even regarding the adoption of sanctions; the fact that the deadline for the Association Agreement with Ukraine coming into force has been delayed till the end of next year; the reluctance to intensify the political and economic confrontation with Moscow and so forth.

It cannot be ruled out that this is the very reason why the USA is trying to enlist the support of a more reliable ally. All the more so since, at the beginning of the 1970s and the start of the 1980s, at a time when relations between Moscow and Beijing were undergoing a drastic cooling, China not only restored diplomatic relations with the USA, but also declared its rejection of the Soviet-Chinese treaty "On friendship, alliance and mutual assistance", concluded in 1950. They received in exchange an advantageous trade agreement with the USA and even gained Washington's consent to export "military auxiliary equipment" to China. At that time, the capitalist countries granted China loans worth a total sum of more than 28bn dollars.

But in the present geopolitical situation it is hardly likely that Beijing would agree to form an anti-Russian Sino-American tandem, especially in the part of a junior partner as the USA envisages in all the alliances it proposes.

China will boost cooperation in the trade, economic and cultural spheres in any way it can, both with the USA and Russia. For China, a state which occupies second place in the world in its economic power, possesses the largest gold and currency reserves and is aspiring to global leadership, these tactics are mainly productive from the point of view of its own geo-economic and geopolitical ambitions. Besides this, Beijing is pursuing a very subtle trade and economic, investment and demographic policy worldwide.

Today there are hardly any regions of the world where China does not have an investment and economic presence. As far as trade and economic ties with the USA and Russia are concerned, the Sino-American trade turnover last year was more than 500bn dollars, while Sino-Russian figures were 89bn dollars. Such an offensive by China, is backed up by a huge volume of currency resources, which has allowed it to become the major holder of American debt obligations.

From this point of view, the witty phrase pronounced by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems extremely eloquent. She said that "how do you deal toughly with your banker", when she was asked why she did not condemn the problems that obviously existed in relations with Beijing. Besides this, the USA and Russia are greatly troubled by the high level of illegal immigration by the Chinese into their countries. Along with this, from time to time Beijing speaks about its longed-for dream of reviving the Great Chinese Empire, making territorial claims on all its neighbours. Moreover, it almost always manages to get what it wants as in the case of Hong Kong, Macao, territories disputed with Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Russia.

In the opinion of some analysts, China's covert territorial aims with regard to Russia include the whole of Siberia,which it plans to annex by demographic expansion. All in all, Beijing's territorial claims amount to 10m sq. km, which is more than the territory of China itself (9.6m sq. km). So, it is hardly likely that Beijing, which can play the above-mentioned trump cards, methodically and patiently achieving its set targets, will agree to a proposal of joining any kind of tandem against one venerable player or another on a planetary scale. But, proceeding from its own interests, it will certainly take skilful advantage of the contradictions between the other centres of power.