I found Chang Hsi-mo's article ("China must collapse for Russia to stay united," May 28, page 8) to be very interesting. I am a Canadian university student who is very interested in global politics, especially those of Russia and developments in China. I have been to both of these countries. I am also a strong pro-Taiwan independence supporter.
I do agree that the fate of Russia is tied to China. As China grows stronger, and the energy and resource problems it has already started to experience grow more numerous and more severe, it will inevitably look north into Russia and east into former Soviet Central Asia for land, resources and political influence.
As long as it is dependent upon Russia for energy and raw material and is surrounded on two sides by potentially hostile states, China can never be a superpower. It will seek to set up a buffer zone as the Soviets (and to some extent the Americans) did in the Cold War. And it will seek to acquire a reliable source of raw materials.
This will obviously bring it into conflict with Russia, either directly or in the former Soviet regions, and the relative strengths of both of the states will determine the outcome of such a conflict. I believe that it is not just a Chinese collapse that would strengthen Russia, but a strong China may threaten it in the long run.
However, though a dramatic political shift must take place to "save" Russia, China is not the only country from which such a shift could occur, as Chang advocated in the article. Europe was divided between the superpowers after World War II for half a century and is now striving to find itself politically. It is still unclear what form the EU, the world's largest economy, will take on the world stage. Or even what form the EU itself will take on the map and where its boundaries will be drawn.
But one thing that is clear is that whatever its choice, it will dramatically change the world situation and the situation inside Russia.
Russia's admittance into the EU (or whatever organization it evolves into) is inevitable, as ultimately they need each other.
Europe needs the raw materials and the energy, while Russia is inevitably on a "march to the West" and will not have arrived until it is readmitted into the Europe it left in 1917. When this occurs, Russia will be seen completely differently by former Soviet states and by Asia, as they will realize that Russia is their ticket to the West, to prosperity and freedom, to the "American lifestyle" which they all are desperate for.
Evidence of this includes the three recent "orange, velvet and rose" revolutions in which new regimes swept to power for the simple reason that they were "pro-Western" in a very abstract sense. Even though none of the voters knew exactly what they stood for, they supported them because they seemed to be more Western-oriented than what the people had before.
The West won the Cold War. If Russia joins the EU, and therefore the West, it will reverse the disintegration trend and nations such as Kazakhstan will be begging to join the federation -- and regions such as Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Sakha, Tuva, Karelia and Kalmykija would abandon all thoughts of leaving it.
For the most part I agree with Chang's arguments, and I commend him, for few writers are bold enough to say that the fate of one great nation is dependent on the collapse of another.
Mike Pazaratz
Canada
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