Relations not alliance of convenience

With or without the Ukraine crisis or Western sanctions on Russia, the course of normal Sino-Russian exchanges will follow its own path. Given that the three-decades of sanctions imposed by the US on Iran have failed to completely stop the oil trade between the US' Western allies and Teheran, how can the US-led West make a fuss over the normal energy cooperation between Russia and China, especially since China does not have an alliance with either the US or the European Union?

Russia's economic and trade interests converge with China's, but the US' pivot to Asia might serve to increase the areas of cooperation between Beijing and Washington in this region, such as increasing their cooperation to maintain stability, in the long run.

If the US does not aim its new Asia-Pacific strategy at containing China, the common interests of China and the US may exceed those of China and Russia and the importance of China-US ties in the Asia-Pacific may be greater than ties between China and Russia in the region. Thus, the claim the Ukraine crisis has catalyzed a so-called China-Russia alliance to confront the US' Asia-Pacific strategy is completely groundless.

What the US-led West now needs to do is not to take advantage of its powerful "voice" to fabricate a China-Russia alliance that does not exist. Instead, it should make an objective assessment of the Ukraine crisis from a historical and realistic perspective, no longer regard Ukraine as a chess piece in the struggle to maintain its power, and put a stop to the "sanction, counter-sanction" logic.

Moreover, the West should listen to China's earnest urges on the issue and push for the final resolution of the Ukraine crisis.

The author is deputy director of the Center for Russia Studies, East China Normal University.

(China Daily 08/20/2014 page8)