After a low point in US-Russian relations, US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be meeting face-to-face. China is one of the reasons.
Biden wants to spend time in a room with Putin and the translators to better understand what drives the Russian president and what the real issues are, said Ian Bremmer, a US foreign affairs expert and Time magazine columnist. That's very important for him, it's where his empathy comes from — if Biden has a superpower, that is it, the columnist told DW.
By February 2021, relations between the two nuclear powers had reached a 30-year low. Biden had called Putin a killer, which triggered outrage in Moscow. Suddenly, however, things changed and plans were made for a private meeting in a neutral space, in Switzerland.
The US seeks to normalize relations with Russia — mainly because of China, according to Raimund Krämer, who teaches international politics at the University of Potsdam. "The main focus of Biden's European trip serves the greater goal of forging alliances against China," he told DW, adding that much is evident in the G7, NATO and EU summits as well as in the meeting with the Russian president.
Two US aircraft carriers in the South China Sea
The list of topics up for debate between Biden and Putin is long: disarmament treaties, the Ukraine conflict, Syria, Iran's nuclear program, Libya, Afghanistan. Not to mention human rights violations, the suppression of the free press and opposition in Russia, pro-government hacking attacks, and the hijacking of the Ryanair plane by Russia's ally Belarus. One topic will not be on the agenda, although it has become the focus of American foreign policy: China.
Bremmer said that while it is unlikely Biden and Putin will talk directly about China, it is clear the US sees China as a key antagonist on the global stage, which in turn influences US strategy with respect to Russia.
US favors steady relationship with Russia
The ongoing confrontation between the United States and the People's Republic of China came to a head shortly before Biden's trip to Europe. Three days before the G7 summit, the US announced it would approve a trade agreement with Taiwan — a provocation for China. A day later, the US Senate passed a $244 billion (€201 billion) package of legislation to combat China's technological dominance. One day before the summit, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the Pentagon to bring more of a focus on strategy on China.
The presidents of China and Russia in 2019
Biden doesn't like Putin, nor does he think Russia is of incredible strategic value, but the reality of US-China relations means that we would rather not have big problems with the Russians, Bremmer said.
Ralf Fücks, director of the Berlin-based Center for Liberal Modernity think tank, takes a similar view, arguing that clearly, "China is present in the background." The US has no interest in escalating the conflict with Moscow, the Russia expert added. "It's really just a side issue for them that interupts their attempts to consolidate their strategic positions vis-a-vis Beijing," he said, adding that it's a strategic option for Putin to expand cooperation with China, which he has already started doing.
Ian Bremmer
Getting too close to China is 'dangerous for Russia'
Since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, Moscow and Beijing have strengthened their bilateral ties. The halt of a significant portion of foreign direct investment in Russia was an immediate consequence of western sanctions. Attempts to offset that loss by turning to China have been only partially successful. The Russian economy has been stagnating for years. Real incomes are falling, while frustration among the population is on the rise.
Russia is trying to participate in China's economic growth. New pipelines to China are under construction and Russia has been supplying the Chinese with modern weapons systems that Beijing is not getting from the West. "Russia is helping the Chinese build a military satellite defense system," according to Sarah Pagung of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). "But they are very cautious because in the end, of course, they don't want the Chinese to simply copy military technology that the Russians have developed and then become independent," the DGAP Russia expert argued.
A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile launcher rehearsed for a parade in 2012
It is the authoritarian common ground that drives Putin to Xi Jinping's side, said Ralf Fücks of the Center for Liberal Modernity. "There is, in effect, a new international of authoritarian powers that see a common opponent in liberal democracy and the liberal world order." Russia, he added, fears China more than it sees China as a strategic partner.
"Getting too close to China is dangerous for Russia," Victoria Zhuravleva, the head of North American studies at Russia's University of Human Sciences in Moscow, told DW. The United States could provide a counterweight to China for Russia to move between, the political scientist said, adding that could be a way of balancing the two powers.
Walking the seesaw of power politics is the position Russia seems to seek, a center among many in a multi-polar world. "Russia's favorite position is still that of a kind of mediator between Asia and the West," said Katharina Bluhm, director of the Institute for Eastern European Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. "The mediator role is an illusion today, partly because China is unlikely to grant it to Russia."
Russian troops take part in drill exercises in Crimea
We don't know what the Chinese government thinks about the meeting, said Yawei Liu, a China expert with the Carter Center thinktank , adding that unrest is increasing among Chinese academics on social media. Biden's decision to meet Putin worries the Chinese, he said, it is a smart move. The US will find it increasingly difficult to deal with Russia and China at the same time, according to Yawei Liu, so the motto is "divide and rule."
Biden's messages to Russia and Europe
Not all experts feel confrontation with China is what drives Biden's summit with Putin, however. Kristine Berzina of the German Marshall Fund said the main purpose of Biden's entire European trip is a show of solidarity with US allies. Russia, she said, is perceived as a destabilizing force. "The priority will be to signal that the US will not continue to accept Russia's increasingly threatening and belligerent behavior," Berzina said.
The United States may be focused on China, but Washington is aware that Russia is capable of wreaking significant havoc and destabilizing Western democracies in Europe and America in the process," said Torrey Taussig of the Harvard Kennedy School.
Global leaders at the G7 meeting in 2021
However, the simple fact that he is invited to a meeting is a major domestic political success for Putin, said Pagung, who added that the Russian media portray it as a kind of "recognition of Russia's great power status." Putin, the DGAP expert said, has nothing to lose. Biden, on the other hand, will have to make his position on Russia crystal clear and point out Russian wrongdoing in order to be successful.