Lakshman Gunasekara in Daily News, 21 May 2024, where the title reads thus: “China-Russia summit: pointer to world’s future?” …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, ThuppahiMo
The sudden death of Iran’s conservative President on Sunday hardly stirred the world community’s focus on Gaza where humanity undergoes a shattering collective experience as never before. Iran’s 63-year-old cleric-President is understood to have died in a sudden, weather-induced helicopter crash while returning from an official programme in Iran’s far western borderlands near Azerbaijan.
While reports are still coming in, there is no suspicion of foul play. However, Iran has several intransigent enemies in West Asia itself; [while] the great powers would probably love to inflict harm on that most ancient civilisation and most stable state in West Asia aside from Turkiye.
If this air crash is indeed the result of enemy action, one can expect those details to eventually be deliberately – but indirectly – leaked out by the perpetrators in order that the targeted state gets the message intended by what would be then an act of ‘armed propaganda’. Time will tell. Given its impressive stability, despite the many, highly debilitating, pressures by foreign powers, especially the Western bloc, Iran is expected to move on with the election of a new President according to constitutional protocol.
This large and sophisticated society’s stability is such Tehran’s geopolitical posture is unlikely to shift away from its current path – unless its detractors do an about-turn first. However, this political transition may offer opportunities to move Iranian society toward a more politically and socially equitable direction.
Meanwhile, the world community continues to be mesmerised over the un-imagined horror in Palestine and corollary earth-shaking crisis in larger, energy-rich, West Asia. But the even bigger world impact, namely, the resulting speed-up of shifts in the global balance of power is shrouded by the awful spectacle in Palestine. But some major geopolitical shifts are on-going.
The thunder and screams, blood and rubble on our screens drowned the military drums and obscured the ceremonial colour last week when China warm welcomed ‘best friend’ Russia for the summit between the heads of the two world powers. Chinese President Xi Jinping, fresh from his own tour of Europe the previous week, last Wednesday and Thursday hosted newly re-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin for top-level talks and the further cementing of the strategic partnership between their two countries.
Even if Western political leaders as well as client state Israel’s hardline Likud government leaders were busy posturing desperately to rebut the stream of ‘war crime’ accusations, at least their thinktanks found time to note the Putin visit and, the fine print of the China-Russia dialogue. Many highlighted the fact that the strategic partnership treaty signed between the two same leaders at a similar summit in February 2022 had been soundly affirmed in last week’s summit in Beijing.
No limits
The 10-page joint public statement by the two leaders in February 2022, proudly declared that “…Friendship between the two States has no limits……..”. Last week’s Xi-Putin summit built on that bilateral pact and further emphasised their two giant countries’ commitment to each other.
Readers are encouraged to peruse the February 2022 joint declaration (see text online) because it comprehensively portrays the depth of the ties between the two countries and also the extensive commonality of their geopolitical perceptions and mutually beneficial strategic approaches.
That 2022 treaty maps out the numerous spheres of cooperation, ranging from joint territorial security (they share one of the world’s longest land borders) to trade, mineral resource exploitation, space and technological collaboration and mutual military assistance.
Most instructive, however is the portrayal by that 2022 treaty of the global geopolitical map that is being freshly re-drawn by the actions and policies of the world’s powerful states and responses to these actions by weaker ones and victim populations. Last week the two leaders affirmed that same outlook and strategy. Most critical is the reiteration that the world geopolitical order is now “multipolar”.
In their final statement, the two leaders rejected the unilateralism of the Western power bloc (without explicitly naming the West) and decried the ignoring of the United Nations’ rules and norms by that same power bloc. They also decried the quick resort to military action by those powers to achieve their goals disregarding larger interests of the world community.
Last Wednesday’s formal Xi-Putin meeting was the fourth bilateral interaction between these two great power strongmen since 2022. One analyst counts some forty meetings between the two at various fora over the many years both have held power.
The joint statement issued at a formal press conference in Beijing on Wednesday emphasised the “deepening” of the strategic partnership. Both countries consistently stress that their bilateral relationship is “intense” in its mutuality but, are also careful to clarify that it is not an “alliance” of any kind that is against other states or groups of states.
Western analysts mostly limit their perspective of the summit to the immediate politics arising from the Ukraine war, depicting Russia as being under economic pressure and needing China’s support to survive the current Western sanctions regime.
That both China and Russia have publicly presented last week’s summit as a celebration of 75 years of Russo-Chinese diplomatic ties is ignored by Western commentators. So is the fact that Soviet Russia was the very first state to give recognition to Communist China in 1949 and that, since then, the two communist powers had maintained a long and steady relationship even if there were times of breakdown and even a brief land war.
It was Russia that helped the fledgling Asia Communist republic economically and militarily build its foundations in a hostile world. It was Soviet Russian nuclear assistance that helped China to begin its own nuclear programme both for military as well as civilian purposes.
Today, its emphasis on bringing a billion plus people out of poverty has delayed China’s military nuclearisation development. Beijing has only a few hundred nuclear warheads. This is where Russia makes its biggest contribution to the Russo-Chinese partnership: the provision of a massive “nuclear umbrella” to China.
The principal trade-off in this relationship is one in which Russia provides the nuclear deterrent umbrella – along with a steady supply of fuel and vital raw minerals needed for China’s huge electronics industry. On its part, China provides Russia with easy access to a wide range of economic supplies and a large market for exports – critically circumventing the Western sanctions against Moscow for its Ukraine invasion. Together, these military and economic attributes of both states combine to form a potent geopolitical force the world has not seen before.
China is already the world’s biggest economic producer and, within this decade, is expected to become the biggest economy overall, overtaking the USA.
Russia has nuclear arms that match that of the United States both in quantity (numbers of warheads and delivery vehicles) as well as quality (target acquisition accuracy, speed and range). Thereby, Russia’s nuclear arsenal provides that magical-nightmarish ‘deterrent’ factor that only nuclear powers can wield – ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD).
Russia’s or China’s conventional armed forces easily outnumber that of NATO as a whole, in terms of numbers. In terms of quality they are behind the West. In Naval terms, too, neither country can match the West.
They do not need to. Neither country has the same kind of long distance, imperialistic or colonialist outreach so energetically pursued by the West.
But the critical factor that overrides the economic and military capabilities of these two very large and powerful nations is geography. Russia and China have the unique advantage of jointly straddling the Earth’s largest landmass.
Hinterland
Together, Russia and China occupy more than half of the vast combined landmass of Europe and Asia. This immense living space provides these states control over vast hinterland as never before in human history. This huge landmass also provides vast capacities in energy, food, industrial and military production.
By ‘hinterland’ is meant large areas of countryside outside the urban population concentrations.
This is very advantageous in terms of geo-strategy. For an enemy state, such a large hinterland means that the area to be targeted in war is very large. More weaponry and firepower is needed.
At the same time, the human targets, namely actual populations and the centres of activity (economic, military), are dispersed widely and sometimes, if there is mountainous terrain or thick forest cover, the targets are not easily identifiable.
Russia and China share the same vast landmass with common hinterlands and natural resources. The long history of their inter-state relations shows that these two large states or, previously, empires, have found it better to co-exist amicably. Except for a short bitter modern conventional war in the mid-20th century, these two states have had a 75-year bilateral relationship that has been relatively peaceful and economically mutually beneficial.
Eurasia
The rest of the world, especially, the rival Western bloc, should take notice that the summit affirmed the continued strengthening of economic ties through two giant international structures: the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU or EEU) is an economic union of five post-Soviet states located partly in Europe – Belarus, Russia – and partly in Central Asia – Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan.
It was created by treaty in 2014. The EAEU has an integrated single market. As of 2023, it consists of 183 million people and a gross domestic product of over $2.4 trillion.
Coming from China, the Belt and Road Initiative has already begun channelling trade from the East Asian and Pacific industrial hubs in China and the Russian Far East through the EAEU toward the richer markets of the EU.
Thus, while the West is bogged down in trying to forcibly maintain a tiny outpost in a hostile West Asia, other parts of the world community are moving on. Other sections of the world community, now emerging from colonial subordination, have their own interests in prosperity. They are also reluctant to be trapped in such big power depredations as the war in Palestine.
Thus, whole clusters of these post-colonial nations are seeking new collaborations. Other powers are pushed into closer intimacy like Russia and China.
New geopolitical formations are emerging. Such is the refreshing new dimension of multipolarity in the global community today.
It’s Hong Kong all over again.
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