UNITED STATES: U.S. Faces Challenges From Second-Tier Powers

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 1996 (IPS) - The United States may be the world’s last superpower, but these days it is not getting the respect it thinks that status deserves.

While U.S. diplomacy and muscle in Bosnia and the Middle East appear to be enhancing the image of President Bill Clinton as a global peacemaker, recent developments in China, Russia, and India suggest that not everyone stands in awe.

“No one over here is panicking,” says one senior official who admitted that some of the clouds gathering on the international horizon could turn dark.

Much of the concern is directed at what is perceived here as rising nationalist sentiment within powerful countries unhappy with their place in an uncertain world order.

While no immediate crisis in bilateral ties with Russia is expected, recent trends there presage a more assertive foreign policy which could rub up against some key U.S. interests.

In the aftermath of the Communist victory in the December 17 parliamentary elections, Russian President Boris Yeltsin has purged his government of all its top liberal reformers. Some of these, most notably former Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, were outspokenly pro-Western in their policies and rhetoric.

Kozyrev’s replacement last week by former spy chief Yevgeny Primakov prompted a distinct chill here, with more than one pundit noting Primakov’s efforts five years ago to save Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from total defeat in the Gulf War.

Primakov’s ascendancy — combined with the departure Tuesday of Anatoly Chubais, Yeltsin’s economic chief, and the appointment of hawkish Nikolai Yegorov as chief of staff — confirms to many here that the Russian president intends to run for re-election by echoing nationalist themes of the Communists and other conservative parties.

On the record, U.S. officials are soothing about these moves, insisting the Kremlin shifts are more about image than action.

“Yeltsin knows that if he wants more assistance and western support, he can’t back away from fundamental reforms,” said one senior Clinton aide who noted that “appearing to be in charge can be a successful election strategy.”

But others say that Primakov’s rise may be more than symbolic.

Jim Hoagland, foreign affairs columnist for the Washington Post, warned that the former Soviet journalist, while pragmatic, “has always displayed a constant and deep distrust of U.S. motives in foreign affairs.”

And the New York Times’ William Safire, with good contacts in U.S. intelligence and military circles, warned that Primakov may not only try to stymie U.S. efforts in the Middle East, where he is a specialist, but may also be “a harbinger of a new Russo- Chinese entente.”

New strains with China — the leading candidate for assuming the Soviet Union’s mantle as Washington’s nemesis in the post-Cold War era — also concern Washington policymakers.

In the past several weeks, Beijing has taken a number of actions which some analysts believe could portend a new plunge in bilateral ties similar to that which took place last year when Clinton rejected Chinese protests over his decision to grant a visa to Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui.

The actions have included the 14-year sentencing to prison of long-time dissident and political prisoner Wei Jingsheng and continuing assertiveness towards Hong Kong and Taiwan. At the same time, reports of systematic abuse of children in Chinese orphanages have inflamed public opinion here.

There is also the United States’ mushrooming trade deficit with China and Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole’s plan to urge during his campaign for president that Beijing not be admitted to the World Trade Organisation.

Also, the expulsion and 19-hour incommunicado detention this week of a U.S. defence attache in China and Beijing’s decision to regulate international financial news flowing into China have caught Washington off-guard.

While senior officials insist that the latter are relatively minor events, they concede that continuing problems like these do little to promote an improvement in relations.

The big challenges looming ahead, according to these officials, are how China will react to a number of developments: Taiwan’s presidential election in March and Lee’s all-but-certain victory; and to U.S. and western efforts to get the U.N. Human Rights Commission to condemn repression against dissidents.

“The question is whether the damage from this can be contained and not spin off in a way that creates a more destructive dynamic,” said one senior official.

In India, Washington faces a more immediate problem which some believe could become a major crisis.

While bilateral ties — especially in the economic arena — have reached unprecedented levels since Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s launched his reform programme in the early 1990s, relations plunged in November when Congress approved the delivery to Pakistan of 368 million dollars’ worth of U.S. weapons.

Politically weak and beset by a nationalist and Hindu fundamentalist opposition, Rao has responded by some not very subtle sabre-rattling which Washington fears will dash any hopes for preventing a nuclear arms race between the two neighbours.

Last month, U.S. intelligence detected signs that India was preparing a nuclear weapons test — the first since 1974. And on Tuesday, Delhi announced that it will deploy its Prithvi ballistic missile which, according to State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns, would be “destabilising.”

Washington has also warned Rao that, if India goes ahead and tests a nuclear device, the administration will cut off virtually all economic and trade assistance. it will also oppose all loans for India which come before the boards of multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank, officials say.

“Rao understands the stakes, but he has domestic political stakes, too,” said one official. “The pressure on him to show that he can stand up to the U.S. will be greater.”