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01/06/2005
Russia / China / Japan
Time to catch up on the events of the past few weeks and add
some weight to comments I’ve made in my “Week in Review”
column. Russia and China have increasingly been in the news,
and for all the wrong reasons.
Back on December 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin held his
annual press conference, the day after it was announced Rosneft
had bought Yukos’ key subsidiary from the original auction
winner, the mysterious Baikal Finance Group. [This deal
continues to change since then with further comment in my
next “Week in Review.”]
Putin defended the action. “Today the state – using absolutely
legal market mechanisms – is ensuring its interests. I consider
this perfectly normal .We all know perfectly well how
privatization at the beginning of the 90s was conducted and how
some market participants got multibillion state assets using
different tricks, including some violations of then-existing
legislation.” Rosneft’s acquisition of the Yugansk facility, on the
other hand, was in line with the law, he said.
Putin took his shots at the West and the United States, lashing
out at the Houston judge who had first prevented Gazprom from
bidding on the Yukos unit, saying U.S. criticism amounted to
imperialism.
But Putin reserved his harshest criticism for the European Union
and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who had said in a
December newspaper interview that “Russia without Ukraine is
better than Russia with Ukraine” for the United States.
“If we interpret this (statement by Kwasniewski) as striving to
limit Russia’s ability to develop relations with its neighbors, then
it means a desire to isolate the Russian Federation,” said Putin.
“If that is the case, then the (Western) policy toward Chechnya
becomes more understandable (as) a policy aimed at establishing
elements that would destabilize the Russian Federation.”
Hardliners in Russia have accused Kwasniewski as being
Washington’s proxy in the election war over Ukraine.
For his part Kwasniewski told reporters Putin’s criticism was
unfair and a “price that Poland and I must pay for our
involvement in solving the political crisis in Ukraine.”
Putin also denounced “dangerous attempts to solve political
issues through non-legitimate means” in a reference to Ukraine’s
so-called Orange Revolution along with the Rose Revolution in
Georgia last year. These two had been planned “in other places”
and Putin referenced George Soros for bankrolling the salaries of
senior officials in the Georgian government.
But Putin backed off somewhat by the end of his appearance,
describing the United States as one of Russia’s most important
partners and an ally in the struggle against terror. Putin called
President Bush “a consequential and decent man” who keeps his
word and whom he “fully trusts.”
Putin also made clear, however, that Russia would continue to
maintain contacts with separatist regimes in neighboring
countries. For example, Putin supports Georgia’s territorial
integrity, but only if it accommodates the wishes of ethnic
groups.
[Souces: Catherine Belton and Greg Walters / Moscow Times;
Simon Saradzhyan and Nabi Abdullaev / Moscow Times.]
And then we have China. On December 27 the government
published its fifth national defense white paper since 1995, titled
“China’s National Defense in 2004,” which described relations
with Taiwan as “grim.” Following are some quotes from the
paper.
“(While) peace and development remain the dominating themes
of the times, factors of uncertainty, instability and insecurity are
on the increase
“The separatist activities of the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces
have increasingly become the biggest immediate threat to
China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as peace and
stability on both sides of the Taiwan Straits and the Asia-Pacific
region as a whole
“The Taiwan authorities under Chen Shui-bian have recklessly
challenged the status quo that both sides of the Straits belong to
one and the same China, and markedly escalated the ‘Taiwan
independence’ activities designed to split China.”
The United States is criticized for its continuous arms sales to
Taiwan which, the paper says, increases both “quantitatively and
qualitatively,” despite Washington’s commitment to adhere to
the one-China policy and oppose “Taiwan independence.”
The U.S. action is “sending a wrong signal to the Taiwan
authorities” and “does not serve a stable situation across the
Taiwan Straits.”
“It is the sacred responsibility of the Chinese armed forces to
stop the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces from splitting the
country
“We will never allow anyone to split Taiwan from China through
whatever means. Should the Taiwan authorities go so far as to
make a reckless attempt that constitutes a major incident of
‘Taiwan independence,’ the Chinese people and armed forces
will resolutely and thoroughly crush it at any cost.”
But .
“So long as the Taiwan authorities accept the one-China
principle and stop their separatist activities aimed at ‘Taiwan
independence,’ cross-Straits talks can be held at any time on
officially ending the state of hostility between the two sides,
including on the establishment of a confidence-building
mechanism in the military field .
“China will never go for expansion, nor will it ever seek
hegemony.”
The paper pinpointed weaknesses in China’s 2.3 million strong
People’s Liberation Army.
“The PLA aims at building qualitative efficiency instead of a
mere quantitative scale, and transforming the military from a
manpower-intensive one to a technology-intensive one.”
The navy is focusing on training amphibious combat forces, a
prerequisite to any successful operation against Taiwan, though
personally I don’t think it’s really necessary.
Finally, Japan issued its own National Defense Program Outline
earlier in December. The gist of this was Japan needs to watch
China closely.
“China is pushing forward its nuclear and missile capabilities
and modernization of its navy and air force. It is also trying to
expand its scope of naval activities and attention must be paid to
these developments.”
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said, “Because of
historical reasons, the direction of Japanese military and security
issues is an extremely sensitive matter. Hopefully, Japan will
take into consideration the concern of all its Asian neighbors,
continue to walk the road of peace and development and behave
prudently to preserve peace and stability in this region.”
Japan maintains it is only seeking to improve its defensive
capability and not adopt a pre-emptive strike capability, though
experts say this is just posturing and that Japan will acquire a
pre-emptive capability in the not too distant future.
On the issue of North Korea, the defense paper offers:
“North Korea has been developing, deploying and proliferating
weapons of mass destruction and it possesses large-scale special
units. North Korea’s military activities are a major destabilizing
factor in the region.”
[Sources: Richard McGregor and Caroline Gluck / Financial
Times; China Daily; Nailene Chou Wiest / South China Morning
Post; Linda Sieg and Teruaki Ueno / Reuters]
Hott Spotts will return January 13.
Brian Trumbore
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