China's support of Russia mirrors own expansionism

Friday, August 8, was the holiest day in China's 2008 calendar. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush were in Beijing (along with 54 other heads of state and 15 prime ministers) to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. Russia also invaded Georgia that day. China shrugged off the Russian desecration of the sacred date, but the invasion sent shudders through Russia's former Soviet republics.

Yet 20 days later, in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, the heads of state of China, Russia, and four former Soviet Central Asian "Shanghai Cooperation Organization" (SCO) members pronounced their "support for Russia's active efforts in promoting peace and cooperation in that region." Their communiqué, known as the "Dushanbe Declaration,"[1] included language decrying the "use of armed force to resolve problems" and called for "respect of the basic tents of international law." But was it a veiled slap at Russia?

Not likely, given the signature of Russia's titular President Dmitri Medvedev on the document. The SCO operates by consensus and, if he had wanted, Medvedev could have aborted the whole thing. Of course, it is not clear exactly what happened. It could be that, for whatever reason, this was the best deal Medvedev could get. What is clear, however, is that in the end, it was enough for Medvedev to declare the backing of China and the other SCO states for Russia's intervention.[2] China has certainly not objected to his characterization.

The declaration is easily read as blaming the necessity for Russia's military intercession on those who failed "to respect every country's and every people's history and cultural traditions," an allusion to Georgia's disregard for the "history and cultural traditions" of its Abkhazian and South Ossetian minorities. More in sorrow than in anger, the declaration recalled that "not long ago, the members of this organization expressed deep concern about tensions generated in the situation surrounding South Ossetia, and called upon each relevant party to resolve peacefully current problems through dialogue."

Despite these sentiments, Beijing was not "concerned" by Moscow's muscular action on the day of the Olympics' opening ceremony. This much was obvious at the summit meeting the following day between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russia's real strongman, Premier Vladimir Putin. Without a trace of irony, Hu praised China's relationship with its Russian "strategic cooperative partner" as "advancing across the board precisely in accordance with our commonly declared goals"[3]—a full-throated endorsement if ever there was one. Hu's comments were hardly unusual; in view of their interlocking bilateral and multilateral security treaties, the China-Russia relationship is what most would call an "alliance."[4] Tellingly, the unpleasantness in Georgia was not mentioned in the front-page banner-headlined People's Daily report of the Hu-Putin summit.[5] Xinhua's lengthy report of the invasion, datelined Moscow, was relegated to page 17 of the People's Daily, and it blamed Georgia's oppression of the Ossetians for necessitating the Russian action.[6]

On Sunday, August 10, President Hu held another summit, this time with President Bush, who had just come from a state-sponsored Christian church service. Hu thanked Bush for his "support on many occasions for the Beijing Olympics," praise that was reported on the front page of the People's Daily, complete with banner headline.[7] According to Chinese state media, the two discussed North Korea, Iran, Sudan, and Darfur. Yet the Chinese press again failed to mention that Bush raised the matter of Russia's aggression against its small neighbor. While White House aides recalled that Bush and Hu had a "discussi