A few days ago I noted that new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a visit to China one of his first official acts. In fact, he was only President for 2 weeks before he headed off to China. While he was there, he signed some agreements (more detail below) and took the opportunity to kick sand in the US’s face:
Speaking at a university a day after he and Chinese President Hu Jintao criticized U.S. missile defense plans, Medvedev rejected what he said was opposition to Russian-Chinese cooperation in remarks that sounded like a veiled jab at the United States.
“Some don’t like such strategic cooperation between our countries, but we understand that this cooperation serves the interests of our people, and we will strengthen it, regardless of whether others like it or not,” the Russian leader said. “Russian-Chinese relations are one of the most important factors of maintaining stability in modern conditions.”
The jabs continued:
Medvedev never mentioned the United States by name and said the Russian-Chinese alliance “is not directed against any other nation.
“It is aimed at maintaining a global balance,” he said.
“Global balance” is code for “eliminating the unipolar world dominated by the US.” As I mentioned above, Medvedev and Hu signed some agreements, none of which should be good news for the US.
Russia also strengthened its role as a supplier to China’s booming nuclear power industry Friday, signing a $1 billion deal to build a fuel enrichment facility and supply uranium.
They also signed a more general statement on global issues, including security, energy, and the environment (the best description is here. The summary as far as the US is concerned looks like this:
- US shouldn’t be the dominant player in global security
- US shouldn’t attack Iran
- US shouldn’t deploy missile defense systems
These are all pretty self-serving, of course: the motives of the first and third are obvious, and Iran is a key purchaser of Russian and Chinese military products, and a critical component of China’s energy strategy. Basically they want to stall the US until they get their economic and military ducks in a row, and then they’ll be able to dictate terms, rather than just make noise.
Unfortunately, those ducks are lining up nicely.
Posted by geoff 