Discussing the Xi visit to Moscow with Norway’s Glenn Diesen
It is a testimony to the professionalism and also to the prestige of Press TV, Iran’s English language international broadcaster, that it invites and succeeds in putting on air a variety of genuine experts in international affairs who just happen to have academic credentials no less impressive than the propagandist experts who are invited onto the BBC or Euronews. I have in mind, in particular, my fellow panelist on last night’s program “Spotlight,” Glenn Diesen, Professor of Political Science at the University of South-Eastern Norway in Oslo. You will note, as well, that Press TV is assembling an ever growing team of foreign correspondents, including the lady journalist in Moscow who comments on the State Visit of President Xi from Red Square.
Diesen and I have come at the question of what may have been achieved during the Xi visit to Moscow from rather different analytic angles. I hope that the viewer will profit from these differences.
In closing, I wish to add a still different perspective on the State Visit that I found on last night’s Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show which is broadcast by Russian state television’s Pervy Kanal and may be accessed here in the West via www.smotrim.ru . What they chose to talk about confirms my observation in my latest published essay that there was a wall of silence around these Russian-Chinese meetings, both those of the working groups at ministerial level and those of the two leaders, tête-à-tête. The program moderator and his guest panelists never intimated that they were as clueless about the content of these meetings as Diesen and myself. Instead they chose to focus on the body language of Xi during his entire stay in Russia, meaning his warmth, his smiles, and the extraordinary length of time that he devoted to face to face meetings with Putin behind closed doors, which came to more than 5 hours. It was assumed that during this time they were not playing cards or discussing sports but focused on the ‘who does what when’ joint contingency planning for the further evolution of the war in and about Ukraine. That surely must have been what alarmed Washington the most these past several days. It is what left John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, speechless before journalists when he was asked yesterday to comment on the talks.
Surely the best observations made on the Solovyov show were those by the youthful and energetic resident Sinologist, who has greatest expertise in translating the highly stylized public behavior of Chinese leaders into terms we laymen can understand. He picked up a word here or there, a translation or mistranslation by Xi’s official interpreter, and he explained that Xi put the present meeting in a hundred year time frame, going back to the period of the Russian Revolution of 1917 which coincidentally occurred in close timing with the Chinese revolution that overthrew the Empire. Xi, in his words, sees this meeting as setting the world on a new, multipolar order for the coming hundred years, that is to say as having epochal ramifications. The plans announced at this meeting for further joint positions on developing Chinese-Russian managed international organizations amount to a wholly new commitment to act on behalf of interests that go beyond its own selfish position and to work hand-in-hand with a partner, in this case Russia, for mutual benefit.
Of course, these observations may be just blah, blah. But one other remark by this same Sinologist has meat on the bones. After conceding that what he was about to say was just a personal opinion, he said that the idea that China is not giving Russia military assistance is nonsense. The EU’s plans to purchase and ship to Ukraine one million artillery shells in the coming weeks surely prompted China to prepare one million artillery shells for Russia. And the panelist went on to say: ‘you can be sure these shells have already reached the front lines in Donbas.’
Finally, in support of his argument that the meeting was very important even if we do not know much about its content, he pointed out that Xi did not have to come to Russia so early. To avoid angering the Americans, he could have postponed it one or more times. But instead he chose to make a direct challenge to the Americans and to make this very first trip outside of China following his re-election to come and see ‘his friend Vladimir.’
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
Spotlight - China Russia Expanding Relations
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