On April 19, 2021, the Chinese tabloid Global Times, published under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party, published a column by editor-in-chief Hu Xijin, written in impeccable diplomatic language, full of meaning and - I confess!
- straightforwardness, unexpected for me: "Russia is a huge polar bear, which the West cannot digest."
It explains in a sympathetic and arrogant tone why Russia should not expect good relations with the United States in the foreseeable future. What is there to retell, a fragment from it is worth quoting: “The United States forced its allies to expel Russian diplomats in the course of harsh repression against Moscow ... The countries that attacked Russia include Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania ... When it collapsed The Soviet Union, the Russians did not expect them to suffer. But the pitiful reality is that not only the West, but also the former “brothers” and allies of Moscow have cracked down on Russia. One could say that Russia's suffering is a geopolitical tragedy ... given a powerful nuclear arsenal and the fact that Russia must pursue its own interests, which are contrary to those of the West. Russia is more "democratic" than Saudi Arabia and Singapore.Unfortunately, it is much stronger than these two countries. Russia is a huge polar bear that the West cannot digest. That is why pushing away from the West is her destiny. "
This is written by our Chinese partners, for a second. Our geopolitical friends. So I wanted to exclaim: “Wait to bury us! Think better of yourself, dear comrades! "
It seems to me, or do such articles - with the strongest "pro-Chinese" party existing in Russia lobbying for a great geopolitical alliance with the Celestial Empire - look hypocritical and somehow indecent from the Chinese side? Not? And I am personally glad that Putin realized in time that pushing us against the United States is a delicate oriental calculation, a complex Asian intrigue. Someone can not wait for the fall of the "big polar bear". I have written many times in my columns about how Beijing slipped out of the China-Iran-Russia naval exercises at the last moment, not wanting to go to confrontation with Washington, but gladly yielding this opportunity to us. I wrote about the trap Iran fell into when it went to the conflict with the United States, and in what ways it sold its oil cheaply, paying a wild interest to transfer and cash out its own money for its own oil.stored in a Chinese bank.
And I am very glad that the Kremlin deciphered this Chinese stratagem and took the right steps in time: Putin withdrew troops from the border with Ukraine, accepted the White House's invitation to participate in the climate summit and entered into a dialogue. The inclusion of Russia in the dialogue with the United States happened so lightning fast that it caused a shock reaction in Beijing. One of my favorite authors, Katsuji Nakazawa, writes about this in his article in the Nikkei on April 22: “Joe Biden shocked Xi Jinping by proposing a bilateral summit with Vladimir Putin. Biden's call to Putin makes Xi take a defensive stance. China is racking its brains over the US-Russia summit, seeing that the fates of Taiwan and Crimea are linked. "
April was rich in events in world diplomacy, and a landmark meeting for China was the meeting on April 16, 2021, between US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (anti-Chinese coalition in the event of a war with Taiwan).
But, as Nakazawa assures, senior staff writer Nikkei from Tokyo, who worked in China for seven years and headed the Asia Nikkei bureau there, one of the best information and analytical world publications about Asia and China in particular, diplomacy of phone calls of the heads of world powers no less important.
"There was another telephone conversation between Biden and Putin three days before the Suga-Biden summit, which may have surprised the vigilant Xi."
Let me remind you that the Japan Times called the just-held meeting of the Japanese Prime Minister and the US President "a complete rethinking of the American-Japanese partnership in a new era."
Most importantly, "for the first time, the governments of the two countries have clearly identified China as the main problem facing their alliance."
And the fact that Biden called Putin on the eve of this "anti-Chinese" meeting really alarmed Beijing.
But how optimistic was the article published in the Global Times, in which Russia had already been “turned off” from the big game, mourning its isolationist fate.
But on this second call since late January, Biden offered to meet with Putin in a third country in the coming months.
Quote: “But Xi Jinping did not receive such an invitation to meet in person with the American President.
Xi and Biden, who have known each other for over a decade, made a lengthy phone call on February 10 ahead of the Chinese New Year holidays - that's all. "
We will note, of course, that the conversation between Biden and Xi took place exactly on the eve of China's naval exercises with Iran and the Russian Federation in the northern Indian Ocean, which were scheduled for February 15.
And Xi, after talking with Biden, did not participate in them.
He left Iran and Russia to proudly plow the sea together.
“Biden’s proposal to Putin is particularly shocking to China as it sets a framework for the meeting in the coming months. According to rumors, the two leaders will meet in June, which will be especially inconvenient for Xi, as the Chinese Communist Party celebrates its 100th anniversary on July 1 and this is an important moment for Xi, who is also the party's general secretary, ”writes Nikkei. The entire political and analytical machine in China is solving riddles: why is Biden now meeting with Putin? What are they going to discuss? Will Biden try to resolve US foreign policy issues with Putin, such as the announced withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, so that he can calmly tackle China later? Beijing is full of suspicion. Coincidentally or not, but on April 22, 2021 - almost simultaneously - in Pakistan, the homeland of the Taliban *, in the province of Baluchistan,a car bomb was blown up at the entrance to the hotel where Chinese Ambassador Nong Rong was staying. The ambassador was not at the hotel at the time, but five people were killed and 12 were injured - and this is very similar to someone's warning to China, since the ambassador was next to the mission on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which marks global ambitions. China in South, Central Asia and the Middle East.
When Russia announced the "end of exercises" on the border with Ukraine on Thursday evening, April 22, 2021, Beijing had no doubts that Putin was seriously preparing to meet with Biden.
And this is the worst news for China, which a couple of days ago was giving sympathy to the “big polar bear”.
For a huge bear crushed by sanctions is an opportunity to gnaw it piece by piece, sending sympathetic telegrams on its long-suffering fate.
“From China's point of view, it has good relations with Russia.
The two countries are forging partnerships on different fronts to counter the United States.
But China and Russia are not allies.
And there are no guarantees that Moscow will always be on the side of Beijing, ”Nakazawa writes.
Learning that Putin has accepted the invitation to participate in the climate summit, Xi Jinping also decides at the last minute to participate in the Biden climate summit, which began on Thursday, April 22.
Moreover, in an attempt to intercept the summons from Moscow, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying announced that Xi would "deliver an important speech" from Beijing. The Chinese leader, who until recently did not agree to participate in the summit, called for "the creation of a community of man and nature" and reaffirmed China's goals of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. John Kerry liked it. In the post-industrial era, both for Russia and China, the transition to green energy and the reduction of carbon emissions into the atmosphere is a complex topic. Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Relations, Renmin University of China, believes that it will take China "only 30 years to peak carbon emissions and become carbon neutral." It is possible that many of those present at the summit thought thatthat President Biden's term is four years and who knows what will happen next - maybe the Republicans will return to the White House, the industrial lobby will revive and this climate topic will be forgotten like a bad dream. In the meantime, we have to sit and discuss 30-year plans. "Climate king" John Kerry said that Vladimir Putin presented progressive ideas and "was quite rational."
The direct inclusion of President Putin in the online broadcast of the summit was not without a curiosity. The speech and the image of French President Macron, who was on the air at that moment, was interrupted in mid-sentence - and the President of Russia appeared in the frame. The technical staff may be in trouble, but it is possible that President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken, who hosted the summit, wanted to please the Russian president: it is known that the Kremlin is not very fond of Emmanuel Macron's aplomb.
While the leaders of the world powers were discussing the climate, in the late evening of April 22, 2021, Michael McFaul, the former US Ambassador to Russia, went on the air with the editor-in-chief of the radio station Echo of Moscow in Moscow. The former ambassador really wants to become a present ambassador and return to Russia, so he sends the Russian president the right signals: “I know what Biden and his team want. He wants a stable relationship with Russia. And he has said this many times already. Stability. And do you know why they want stability, Alexey (Venediktov -
Yu.Yu.
)? They want stability with Russia to deal with China. To do our new foreign policy with full focus, how will we deal with China, how will we work with China. "
At a time when the negotiation process is underway in Vienna to lift sanctions on Iran and return it to the Obama deal in the 2015 JCPOA, which threatens to bring down oil prices and change Iran with Russia with sanctions, the last thing we need to do is voluntarily get into geopolitical loneliness and succumb to provocations. “Friends” who want to drag us into military adventures and conflicts (the opinion of the author, let me remind you, may not coincide with the position of the editorial board). We see that neither China nor Iran avoids cooperation with the United States, and, pushing others with their elbows, strive to be the first to take a place at the negotiating table with the Americans. We see this both from what is happening in Vienna and from China's grandiose climate plans announced during the global climate summit: it is clear that China and Xi Jinping today are interested in cooperation, and not in a war with the United States.
It's great that rationalism and composure in the Kremlin prevailed and the emerging scenario of "push Russia out of the big game" was realized and prevented.
After all, if we take the Chinese analogies and their games of metaphors with the "huge polar bear", let's think about the Chinese bear - the giant panda, or bamboo bear, which sounds like "cat-bear" in Chinese.
Smart, cunning, cautious big cat, from which, we must admit, we have a lot to learn.
* "Taliban" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.