(MENAFN- Asia Times) The official visit by Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu to Russia on April 16-19 prima facie underscored the two countries' emergent need to deepen their military trust and close coordination against the backdrop of worsening geopolitical tensions and the imperative to maintain the global strategic balance.
The visit carries forward the pivotal decisions made at the intensive one-on-one talks
between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Moscow through March 20-21. In a break with protocol, General Li's four-day visit was front-loaded with a“working meeting” with Putin, to quote Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (here and here ).
Li is no stranger to Moscow, having previously held charge of the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission, and who was sanctioned by the US in 2018 for purchasing Russian weapons, including Su-35 combat aircraft and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems.
Song Zhongping, a prominent Chinese military expert and TV commentator, forecast that li's trip would signal the high level of bilateral military ties with Russia, and lead to“more mutually beneficial exchanges in many fields, including defense technologies and military exercises.”
On April 12, the US Commerce Department announced the imposition of export controls on a dozen Chinese companies for“supporting Russia's military and defense industries.” The Global Times hit back defiantly that“as China is an independent major power, so is Russia. It's our right to decide with whom we will carry out normal economic and trade cooperation. We cannot accept the US' finger-pointing or even economic coercion.”
Putin said at the meeting with li last Sunday that military cooperation plays an important role in Russia-China relations. Chinese analysts said Li's visit is also a signal jointly sent by China and Russia that their military cooperation will not be impacted by US pressure.
Putin had disclosed in october 2019 that Russia was helping China create an early missile warning system that would drastically enhance the defensive capacity of China. Chinese observers noted that Russia was more experienced in developing and operating such a system, which is capable of identifying and sending warnings immediately after intercontinental ballistic missiles are launched.
Such cooperation demonstrates a high level of trust and requires a possible integration of Russian and Chinese systems. The system integration will be mutually beneficial; stations located in the north and west of Russia could provide China with warning data and, in turn, China could provide Russia with data collected at its eastern and southern stations. That is to say, the two countries could create their own global missile defense network.
These systems are among the most sophisticated and sensitive areas of defense technology. The US and Russia are the only countries that have been able to develop, build and maintain such systems. Certainly, close coordination and cooperation between Russia and China, two nuclear-armed powers, will profoundly contribute to world peace in the present circumstances by containing and deterring US hegemony.
It cannot be a coincidence that moscow ordered a sudden check of the forces of its pacific fleet on April 14-18, which overlapped Li's visit. The inspection took place against the background of the aggravation of the situation around Taiwan.
Indeed, in early April, it became known that the American aircraft carrier USS Nimitz had approached Taiwan; on April 11, the US began a 17-day military exercise in the Philippines involving more than 12,000 troops; on April 17, news appeared about the dispatch of 200 American military advisers to Taiwan.
The US Global Thunder 23 strategic exercises at Minot Air Base in North Dakota (which is the US Air Force Global Strikes Command) began last week, where training was conducted to load cruise missiles with nuclear warheads on to bombers.
The images showed B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers being equipped by the flight technical personnel of the base with AGM-86B cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads on the underwing pylons.
Again, exercises of US aviation and fleet forces have been increasingly noticed in the immediate vicinity of Russian borders or in regions where Russia has geopolitical interests.
On April 5, a B-52 Stratofortress circled over the Korean Peninsula allegedly“in response to nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.” At the same time, South Korea, the US and Japan conducted trilateral naval exercises in the waters of the Sea of Japan with the participation of the USS Nimitz.
Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev recently drew attention to Japan's growing capability to conduct offensive operations, which, he said, constituted“a gross violation of one of the most important outcomes of the Second World War.”
Japan plans to purchase around 500 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US, which can directly threaten most of the territory of the Russian Far East. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is working on developing Type 12 land-based anti-ship missiles“in order to protect the remote islands of Japan.”
Japan is also developing hypersonic weapons designed to conduct combat operations“on remote islands,” which Russians see as options for Japan's possible seizure of the Southern Kurils. For 2023, Japan will have a military budget exceeding US$51 billion (on par with Russia's), which is slated to increase to $73 billion.
Actually, during the latest surprise inspection, the ships and submarines of Russia's Pacific Fleet made the transition from their bases to the Seas of Japan and Okhotsk and the Bering Sea.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said,“In practice, it is necessary to work out ways to prevent the deployment of enemy forces to the operationally important area of the Pacific Ocean – the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk and to repel its landing on the Southern Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island.”
'Loudly on the quiet ...'
Surveying the regional alignments, Yuri Lyamin, a Russian military expert and senior fellow at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a leading think-tank of the military-industrial complex, told izvestia newspaper :
In highly significant remarks at a Kremlin meeting with Shoigu on April 17 – while Li was in Moscow – Putin noted that the current priorities of Russia's armed forces are“primarily focusing on the Ukrainian track ... [but] the Pacific theater of operations remains relevant” and it must be borne in mind that“the forces of the [Pacific] fleet in its individual components can certainly be used in conflicts in any direction.”
The next day, Shoigu told General Li,“In the spirit of unbreakable friendship between the nations, peoples, and the armed forces of China and Russia, I look forward to the closest and most successful cooperation with you....” The russian ministry of defense readout said:
Beijing and Moscow visualize that the US, having failed to“erase” Russia, is turning attention to the Asia-Pacific theater. Suffice to say, Li's visit shows that the reality of Russia-China defense cooperation is complicated. Russia-China military-technical cooperation has always been rather secretive, and the level of secrecy has increased as both countries engage in more direct confrontation with the US.
The political meaning of Putin's 2019 statement on jointly developing a ballistic-missile early warning system extended far beyond its technical and military significance. It demonstrated to the world that Russia and China were on the brink of a formal military alliance, which could be triggered if US pressure went too far.
In October 2020, Putin suggested the possibility of a military alliance with China. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs' reaction was positive, although Beijing refrained from using the word“alliance.”
A working and
effective military alliance could be formed quickly if the need arises but their respective foreign-policy strategies rendered such a move unlikely. However, real and imminent danger of military conflict with the US could trigger a paradigm shift.
This article was produced in partnership by indian punchline and globetrotter , which provided it to Asia Times.
MK Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat. Follow him on Twitter @BhadraPunchline.
Like this:Like Loading...