By Donald Kirk SEOUL - The resurgence of Vladimir Putin as president of Russia ushers in a new era of power politics and diplomacy in Northeast Asia with implications that may not be good news for either the United States or China.
Campaigning against strong opposition from the educated, intellectual, often critical elite of Moscow, Putin appealed for mass support by raising suspicions about the US. He found it easy to get through to millions of voters beyond the capital with claims that the US was influencing elitists against him.
For now Putin would seem far more kindly disposed toward China than the US, talking up much improved relations between the two countries that a couple of brief generations ago faced off against
each other in what was called "the Sino-Soviet dispute".
The term has receded into the miasma of history, but Russia has to worry about the danger of rising Chinese power on their long common border and inside Mongolia, the vast landlocked country that’s wedged between them.
True, Putin did sign a treaty of friendship with China in 2001, and he has often called for strengthening ties in which Russian natural gas and vital pipelines play a strategic role. Against that background Russia and China have steadfastly stood side by side in the United Nations, blocking moves against Iran and Syria.
To the West, the nationalist appeal of Putin evokes uneasy memories of the era of Soviet rule when Russia was the dominant element in an empire that encompassed much of eastern Europe and central Asia. Since the fall of communist leadership more than 20 years ago, Russia has retreated as a global power. The Cold War is long over, and nobody believes that Russian armies are gearing up to take over neighbors as did the dreaded Soviet forces of Josef Stalin.
Still, we have to wonder whether Putin equates his own resurgence with the rebirth of Russia as a strong power capable of intimidating rivals from Europe to Asia. The Soviet Union may no longer exist, but Russia still stretches across the Eurasian land mass. No other country begins to match that geographical reach. READ MORE
