#10
Izvestiya Previews Russian Security Council Visit to China
Izvestiya
16 July 2002
[translation for personal use only]
Report by Yekaterina Grigoryeva: "Sweet and Sour Line of Business"

A Russian Security Council delegation begins an official visit to China today. Vladimir Rushaylo is due to have meetings with PRC Chairman Jiang Zemin and the heads of the Foreign Ministry and the security departments. In addition to the objectives of the Security Council itself, the visit has the additional subtext of preparation for a meeting between the heads of state. Whereas the first half of the year has been "Euro-American" for Russian foreign policy, the second will be Asian. The main "strike" will be against China and India.

The Security Council representatives express the general policy very well when they say that China should be regarded as a factor of stability not only in Asia but in the entire world. Furthermore, China's rate of development is such (the Bloomberg agency reported yesterday [July 15] that the country's GDP in the second quarter was up 8 percent on the same period last year, and economists predict that China's GDP will grow by 7.5 percent this year) that in the foreseeable future it could present serious competition for the country with the strongest economy in the world -- the United States. In reality China, not Russia, is the serious contender for the title of the world's "second great power." So now, before China has definitively "grown strong," Russia needs to consolidate its position with what diplomats refer to as "priority partnership."

Security Council Deputy Secretary Oleg Chernov said yesterday that one of the key issues on the agenda is the consequences of US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. The Security Council delegation will be joined this time by Marshal Igor Sergeyev, presidential strategic security aide. It is conceivable that the US military presence in Central Asia will also be discussed: After all, the Americans are virtually at China's borders. Moreover, among experts and privately Moscow and Beijing regard this presence in the region as "excessive," although they realize that the situation is unlikely to change in the near future.

At the next level there is regional security, principally with the usual emphasis on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This section also includes the India-Pakistan confrontation: Whereas Russia is de factor on Delhi's side, China is one of the few countries capable of conducting negotiations with Islamabad without thereby provoking an allergic reaction from the other side in the conflict.

It is possible that problems of migration will also be touched upon: In addition to general arguments along the lines that "Siberia will be talking Chinese soon," illegal migration means drug trafficking and a rise in crime. However, as Oleg Chernov says, this should not be regarded as a complex issue in bilateral relations: It is principally Moscow's headache. The Security Council believes that Siberia and the Far East need the migrants, because otherwise they would slip into desolation, but the migrants must be legal and working, with a clearly stipulated deadline for returning home. In other words the key to resolving the problem lies in Russian legislation and the creation of a clear migration policy as a whole. Only then can demands be made of China.

Rushaylo will not sign anything, if only because there is nobody with whom to sign: The Security Council does not have an exact counterpart in China, where all security issues are divided among several departments. However, Beijing has recently become interested in how such structures operate: At any rate, the Russian delegation is taking with it materials about its 10 years' work.

There is another curious aspect of this visit: The 16th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is due to be held in the fall, and this will mean the end of Jiang Zemin's era and major organizational restructuring in the PRC. The successor -- PRC Deputy Chairman Hu Jintao -- was decided long ago, but Rushaylo's schedule includes no meeting with him. As the Security Council says, this is "not quite our line of business."

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