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South China Morning Post
December 4, 2002
Ties with US must be our priority, says Putin
The Russian president is said to favour the West and view China as a threat
Mark O'Neill in Beijing
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Beijing and Moscow should forge closer relations with Washington as it would be "absolutely counter-productive" to seek confrontation with their old Cold War rival.
Wrapping up a visit to China, Mr Putin pointed out the US was "our biggest trade partner and our partner in the anti-terrorism coalition".
Mr Putin's visit gave observers a chance to see how the Chinese leadership would respond to the arrival of the first major leader since the sweeping changes at the 16th party congress. The front page of the party's mouthpiece, the People's Daily, ran two large colour photographs of Mr Putin shaking hands with President Jiang Zemin, next to a detailed report of their meeting. Below that was a picture of Mr Putin shaking hands with Hu Jintao, who took over from Mr Jiang as party chief at the congress last month.
It was also Mr Jiang who accompanied Mr Putin to his last official activity yesterday, a speech at Peking University.
The message was clear - while Mr Hu has assumed formal power as party chief, Mr Jiang remains his patron and, as Chinese put it, the "emperor behind the curtain".
While the official media stressed the strength of ties and friendship between the two countries, diplomats said ties with the West and the US were more important to both than relations with each other.
"Putin is very Westernised and in his heart prefers better relations with the US and Nato," said one Asian diplomat. "It is the same for China. Economically, Russia has only oil, gas and weapons to offer China."
The China Business Times yesterday said Mr Putin's preference for the West had become more pronounced since the September 11 attacks and that he had reversed the policy of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, of looking equally at the East and West.
"Many people in Russia, a country in decline but with rich resources, believe that China is a threat, because we are growing in strength every day," it said.
"Russia is prepared to sell India advanced jets, missiles, battleships and surveillance planes and allow it to produce fighter planes and T-90 tanks, but is more cautious in weapons sales to China and charges us more." Mr Putin was playing with a weak hand, the commentary said. "Russia's GDP is a tenth of that in the US and a fifth of China's. It has been overtaken by Spain, Holland, Brazil, India and even South Korea. He has so many bitter problems to deal with."
Absent from Mr Putin's delegation was Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov.
"The reason for his absence is not clear," one Western diplomat said. "It may be that military co-operation is not the centrepiece of Putin's visit to India the next stop on his tour ."
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