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| Interviewee: | Andrew Kuchins, Director, Russia and Eurasia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies |
|---|---|
| Interviewer: | Lee Hudson Teslik, Associate Editor, CFR.org |
September 29, 2008
When Russia sent troops into the Georgian breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia this summer, China's response was decidedly nuanced. While expressing tacit support for Russian military operations in the territories, Beijing refused to recognize either South Ossetia or Abkhazia as sovereign countries, derailing Moscow's plans to swing regional partners behind the provinces' declarations of independence. Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recounts recent conversations with high-level Russian officials including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev. He says Putin said the incidents surrounding the Russia-Georgia conflict would in no way slow the broadening of relations between Moscow and Beijing, but adds that the prime minister's tone sounded "a little bit defensive, at the least."
More broadly, Kuchins warns that the United States should prioritize improving relations with Russia, noting that a faltering relationship between Moscow and Washington could lead to an expansion of Chinese influence: "If there is a significant downturn in the U.S.-Russian relationship-and I do fear that we're on the verge of a train wreck-the Chinese will be right there to geopolitically and economically take advantage of some of the fallout from that." He suggests remembering the kind of "triangular diplomacy" that Henry Kissinger pioneered during the Nixon administration. He says the risk of actual war breaking out between the United States and Russia, while still quite small, is non-negligible at this point, and that "that's just unreasonably high of a risk to take," given the stakes.
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