Author: Dadan Upadhyay
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 21, 2001
Moscow, June 20: China is the biggest
rival of the United States, a top Russian military analyst said here on
Wednesday.
''China is the United States of
America's biggest rival now, and there is a possibility that Washington-Beijing
clashes would get worse, especially after the White House decision to export
arms to Taiwan,'' Andrei Kokoshin, Director of the Institute of International
Security Problems under the Russian Academy of Sciences, said at a press
conference.
Sino-US ties have rapidly shifted
to a precipice not by accident but as the result of ''a deep-rooted process''
which will have a lasting influence on US policies, Kokoshin said.
Kokoshin, who looked after defence
industries and arms exports under the former Russian president, Boris Yeltsin,
warned that developments around the United States-proposed National Missile
Defence (NMD) system, will have ''an ever greater impact'' on Russian-US
relations as Beijing grows stronger.
The Russian expert stressed, however,
that friendly contacts with Beijing and Washington, are ''equally essential
to Russia.''
He described China as Russia's leading
strategic, trade and economic partner, while referring to the coming summit
between the Russian and Chinese presidents, in Moscow, next month.
After his recent summit with US
President George W. Bush, in Ljubljana, Russian President Vladimir Putin
briefed his Chinese counterpart Ziang Zemin by phone, on the results of
the talks with the American leader on the NMD, Russian TV stations reported.
The Russian President also thanked
Jiang for his hospitality in the course of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), saying that their summit in Moscow will facilitate
continuation of the dialogue on the ''issue of mutual interest''.
Talking to a group of mediapersons
last Monday, the Russian President revealed publicly for the first time
that he had passed on a message from Jiang to Bush saying his country was
ready to put the April downing of a United States spy plane by the Chinese
military behind them.
