FAR EAST : Sino-Russian Ties Blossom In a Marriage of Convenience

Earlier this month, 20 eminent Kremlinologists--steeped in years of intrigue between China and the former Soviet Union--assembled secretly here in the Chinese capital to ponder and discuss the upcoming Russian presidential election.

According to some of the scholars who attended the meeting at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on April 8, about half the group favored the chances of Communist Party candidate Gennady A. Zyuganov to defeat incumbent free-marketeer Boris N. Yeltsin in the Russian vote. The other half favored Yeltsin, who begins a three-day, high-profile visit to China on Wednesday.

But while the scholars’ political prognostications differed, the consensus on the importance of Russia’s election for China was far more revealing. No matter who wins the June 16 presidential vote, the scholars concluded, China’s basic interests will not be affected greatly.

“In principle, whoever wins won’t matter much for Sino-Russian relations,” said Pan Deli, an expert who participated in the closed-door meeting at China’s leading think tank.

The “What-me-worry?” consensus reflects the atmosphere of political pragmatism that now characterizes Sino-Russian relations. Not since the Communist solidarity era of the 1950s have the two giant neighbors been less openly suspicious of the other.

And even in the halcyon 1950s, when the two worker states were cooperating on a broad range of industrial projects and the Chinese Communists called their Soviet counterparts “older brother,” the friendship may have been more cosmetic than it is today. Soviet leader Josef Stalin made no attempt to mask his dislike for Mao Tse-tung. Mao, in turn, despised Nikita S. Khrushchev.

Moreover, today China and Russia are increasingly motivated by another common interest--their growing disaffection with U.S. international leadership.

“It’s the Americans who are bringing them closer,” a European diplomat here said. “The Russians feel shunted aside by the U.S. The Chinese feel persecuted, particularly on human rights, and need partners. For both of them it is useful to demonstrate to the outside world that they can get along.”

Most diplomats here doubt that the marriage of convenience will result in a true love fest, with China and Russia ganging up against the United States in the broader geopolitical arena. Serious problems continue, particularly in Russia’s sparsely populated Far East, where an estimated 200,000 illegal Chinese immigrants have spooked the local population into a panic about being swamped by a tide of people from neighboring Manchuria.

“It’s overstepping to say that the Chinese are playing the Russian card against the U.S.,” another Western diplomat here said. “In both countries, there is still a healthy degree of mistrust.”

But Western military experts will be watching closely what kind of arms contracts Yeltsin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin announce after their fourth summit in four years. To boost his presidential campaign, Yeltsin needs to go back home with some fat contracts.

The Chinese are expected to announce the purchase of another batch of advanced SU-27 fighter aircraft worth more than $2.5 billion and conclude an agreement that would allow the Chinese to assemble their own aircraft under Russian license. Other rumored military sales involve missile frigates and Kilo-class submarines.

Bilateral trade, which last year reached $5.5 billion, is more important to the Russians than the Chinese. China is Russia’s second-largest trading partner, behind Germany. China does more trade with eight other countries, including the tiny city-state of Singapore.

But the numbers could change radically after next week’s visit. The two countries are likely to unveil a huge pipeline project to transport natural gas from Siberia to the Yellow Sea. And the Russians lust after a bigger piece of the Three Gorges Dam project on the Yangtze River, China’s biggest undertaking since the construction of the Great Wall.

In historic terms, the high point of Yeltsin’s visit is likely to come Thursday in Shanghai when he, Jiang and the leaders of three border states--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan--sign a far-reaching border demarcation treaty that in principle solves many of the outstanding issues along the long northwestern frontier.