Russia's Leaders See China as Template for Ruling

New York Times ^ | October 17, 2009 | CLIFFORD J. LEVY

[ETL]

MOSCOW — Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Communist Party, Russia’s rulers have hit upon a model for future success: the Communist Party.

Or at least, the one that reigns next door.

Like an envious underachiever, Vladimir V. Putin’s party, United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed.

United Russia’s leaders even convened a special meeting this month with senior Chinese Communist Party officials to hear firsthand how they wield power. ..."

“The accomplishments of China’s Communist Party in developing its government deserve the highest marks,” Aleksandr D. Zhukov, a deputy prime minister and senior Putin aide, declared at the meeting with Chinese officials on Oct. 9

[ETL]

"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...
"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html

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Russia and China have been holding joint war games every other year since 2005. The latest apparently took place on July 22-27 of this year.

"Russia and China will hold their joint military exercise on July 22-27 on the territories of the two countries. About 3,000 military men, 300 units of military hardware, over 40 planes and helicopters will take part in Peace Mission-2009 drills. About 1,500 servicemen, T-80 tanks, BMP-1 and BTR-70 armored vehicles, 22 aircraft, including two Il-76 cargo planes, five Su-24, five Su-25, five Su-27 fighters and five Mi-8 helicopters will represent Russia in the drills."

http://www.russiansentry.com/?area=postView&id=1409
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Russia, China hold Peace Mission 2009 joint exercise

The exercise involves about 3,000 Russian and Chinese servicemen, nearly 300 units of army military equipment and over 40 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Photo: BMP-86A infantry fighting vehicles of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China.

http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20090724/155604547.html
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[2009] Russia, China plan new joint military exercises

By MARTIN SIEFF, UPI Senior News Analyst
Published: March 26, 2009

WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- The continuing tensions over Russia's refusal to sell its state-of-the-art land warfare advanced weapons systems to China hasn't interrupted the rhythm of major joint military exercises between the two major land powers on the Eurasian landmass. The latest in the regular, biennial series of exercises between the two nations has been confirmed for this summer.

The next in the now well-established series of exercises called Peace Mission 2009 will be carried out in northeastern China, the Russian Defense Ministry announced March 18, according to a report carried by the RIA Novosti news agency.

The first bilateral Peace Mission maneuvers -- described at the time as counter-terrorism exercises -- were held in Russia and the eastern Chinese province of Shandong in August 2005. As we reported at that time, they were a lot bigger than mere counter-terrorism exercises. Warships, squadrons of combat aircraft and more than 10,000 troops were involved carrying out landings against hypothetically hostile shores. The maneuvers also involved large-scale paratroops drops. The scale and nature of those exercises suggested a trial run for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan with Russian support. ..."

http://www.upi.com/Security_Industry/2009/03/26/Russia_China_plan_new_joint_military_exercises/UPI-25021238094858/
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Russia, China flex muscles in joint war games
August 17, 2007

CHEBARKUL, Russia (Reuters) - Russia and China staged their biggest joint exercises on Friday but denied this show of military prowess could lead to the formation of a counterweight to NATO.

"Today's exercises are another step towards strengthening the relations between our countries, a step towards strengthening international peace and security, and first and foremost, the security of our peoples," Putin said.

Fighter jets swooped overhead, commandos jumped from helicopters on to rooftops and the boom of artillery shells shook the firing range in Russia's Ural mountains as two of the largest armies in the world were put through their paces.

The exercises take place against a backdrop of mounting rivalry between the West, and Russia and China for influence over Central Asia, a strategic region that has huge oil, gas and mineral resources.

Russia's growing assertiveness is also causing jitters in the West. Putin announced at the firing range that Russia was resuming Soviet-era sorties by its strategic bomber aircraft near NATO airspace.

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-29030120070817?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
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War Games: Russia, China Grow Alliance
September 23, 2005

In foreign policy it’s critical to “know thine enemy.” So American policymakers should be aware that Russia and China are inching closer to identifying a common enemy — the United States.

The two would-be superpowers held unprecedented joint military exercises Aug. 18-25. Soothingly named “Peace Mission 2005,” the drills took place on the Shandong peninsula on the Yellow Sea, and included nearly 10,000 troops. Russian long-range bombers, the army, navy, air force, marine, airborne and logistics units from both countries were also involved.

Moscow and Beijing claim the maneuvers were aimed at combating terrorism, extremism and separatism (the last a veiled reference to Taiwan), but it’s clear they were an attempt to counter-balance American military might.

Joint war games are a logical outcome of the Sino-Russian Friendship and Cooperation Treaty signed in 2001, and reflect the shared worldview and growing economic ties between the two Eastern Hemisphere giants."

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed092605a.cfm
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From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HI29Ag01.html
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From the Russian News and Information Agency:
July 27, 2006
"'I am determined to expand relations with Russia,' Chavez, known as an outspoken critic of what he calls the United States' unilateralism, told the Russian leader, adding that his determination stemmed from their shared vision of the global order.":
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060727/51913498.html
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Venezuela Set to Develop Nuclear Power With Russia
September 29, 2008
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429441,00.html
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Venezuela's Chavez welcomes Russian warships
Nov 25, 2008
LA GUAIRA, Venezuela – Russian warships arrived off Venezuela's coast Tuesday in a show of strength aimed at the United States as Moscow seeks to expand its influence in Latin America. The deployment is the first of its kind in the Caribbean since the Cold War and was timed to coincide with President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Caracas — the first ever by a Russian president.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22Venezuela%27s+Chavez+welcomes+Russian+warships%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz2

More Yahoo search results for Russia and Venezuela connections:
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0geu_X30pZJCJEAfCtXNyoA?p=Russia+Venezuela+bombers+tanks+arms&y=Search&fr=404_news
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From National Public Radio (NPR):
August 29, 2006
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been visiting countries such as China, Iran and Russia as part of an effort to build a 'strategic alliance' of interests not beholden to the United States. He considers the United States his arch enemy.":
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5729764
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Russian nuclear bombers in Cuba?
July 23, 2008

The media has been abuzz today at the prospect of Russian nuclear bombers being stationed in Cuba if the US goes ahead with plans for missile defense bases in Eastern Europe.

The story has riled the US enough that a US general has been wheeled out to tell the world’s press that any Russian attempt to build another nuclear base in Cuba would cross US “red line”.

The story broke earlier this week, when Russian newspaper Izvestia quoted an un-named source from within the Russian military. He told the Russian daily:

“While they are deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic bombers will already be landing in Cuba.”

The quote hasn’t been independently confirmed, but the Russian Defense Ministry added fuel to the fire when they refused to comment on the story.

The prospect of Russian nuclear forces being stationed in Cuba - which is, after all, only 90 miles from the US coast - would bring back some rather unpleasant memories for the US of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where the Soviet Union under Nikita Kruschev launched an audacious and foolhardy bid to station nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island.

http://www.siberianlight.net/2008/07/23/russian-nuclear-bombers-cuba/
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Russia to help Cuba modernize weaponry, train military

September 18, 2009

HAVANA, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of Russian-Cuban military cooperation in the near future, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Friday.

Gen. Nikolai Makarov arrived on a working visit to Cuba on Monday, met with Cuban President Raul Castro and the country's military leadership, and visited a number of military installations.

"During the Soviet era we delivered a large number of military equipment to Cuba, and after all these years most of this weaponry has become obsolete and needs repairs," Makarov said.

"We inspected the condition of this equipment, and outlined the measures to be taken to maintain the defense capability of this country...I think a lot of work needs to be done in this respect, and I hope we will be able to accomplish this task," the general said.

Makarov said the Cuban request for assistance with training of military personnel will also be fully satisfied.

Although the Cuban leadership has repeatedly said it has no intention of resuming military cooperation with Russia after the surprise closure of the Russian electronic listening post in Lourdes in 2001, bilateral military ties seem to have been improving following the visit of Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to Cuba in July last year.

A group of Russian warships, led by the Admiral Chabanenko destroyer visited Cuba in December last year during a Caribbean tour.

http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20090918/156170428.html

[ETL]

Cold War 2 Ping.

[EternalVigilance]

Russia's Leaders See China as Template for Ruling

Ah. They hanker to be a fascist superstate.

[hinckley buzzard]

United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed.

Lotsa luck selling Russians on the return of slave labor camps, Pootie.

[P.O.E.]

Always knew there’d be trouble if Russia & China ever joined forces.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Oh, yes, they are both klepto-fscists.:-)

[edcoil]

Their commie is better then our commie.

Right.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Chinese have been bankers, traders and merchants for a thousand years. Russians have been a suspicious, envious and inward looking people for as long as history has been written.
there is no chance Russia will understand the difference.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Correction: klepto-fascists

[depressed in 06]

I don’t see anything to indicate that DumBO doesn’t want to join them.

[EternalVigilance]

True enough.

[4rcane]

the secret of china success is their leaders are communist in name ONLY, their society is capitalistic. They don’t have free health care of education, their business taxes are are 10% for foreign investment

[4rcane]

..and they don’t have these restriction of energy production. They’re big on nuclear, coal and oil

[depressed in 06]

their leaders are communist in name ONLY

DumBO and the current crop of Fascists are Democrats in name only. The communists in China realize that communism is a failed system, ZerO does not. The controllers want to be controllers.

You will not be able to convince me that ZerO will give up power in 10, 12 or 16.

[ETL]

"Hand-picked by their elders for their manifested zeal in keeping the Communist Party in power, the new leaders pledged to adhere to Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong thought and Deng Xiaoping theory for "a long time to come"."

Communist Party goes modern
By Antoaneta Bezlova
Nov 16, 2002

BEIJING - China's Communist Party - the world's largest political movement, with 66 million members - has bid to cast off its harsh image as a revolutionary party committed to violent class struggle in favour of the more mellow image of a conventional ruling party.

At its week-long congress that ended on Friday, the Party redefined itself from the "revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat" to a representative party of the whole nation, embracing capitalists - the class enemies it loathed in the past - and electing a younger generation of leaders.

Hu Jintao, 59, an enigmatic party apparatchik who, under the outgoing party chief Jiang Zemin was deputy general secretary and vice president, heads the new party leadership.

The Politburo Standing Committee, China's highest ruling body, was expanded from seven to nine members, all men in their 50s and early 60s who are deeply committed to turning China into an aggressive, high-technology market economy.

Hand-picked by their elders for their manifested zeal in keeping the Communist Party in power, the new leaders pledged to adhere to Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong thought and Deng Xiaoping theory for "a long time to come".

But, added new party chief Hu Jintao, the new leadership will also work hard to "project a fine image of a party that advances with its times".

Although he is not ranked alongside the late paramount leaders Mao and Deng, whose ideas have already been enshrined in the party constitution, outgoing Communist Party chief Jiang is credited with fostering that "fine image" by introducing his "Theory of the Three Represents".

Jiang's theory means that the Party now formally welcomes not only workers, farmers, soldiers and intellectuals but also "any advanced element of other social strata", clearly referring to the emerging forces of private businessmen, professionals and other social elite.

The change in ideology was sealed on the last day of the congress, when more than 2,000 delegates voted in favor of changing the party constitution to accommodate Jiang's theory - a clear sign that the Chinese Communist Party finally sees itself as a party in power as opposed to a revolutionary party.

"A ruling party has different goals than a revolutionary party," said Wang Changjiang, a professor of party building at the Central Chinese Communist Party School. "A revolutionary party fights to seize power by violent means while a ruling party has to find the best way of using this power."

There are other differences too, argued Hu Wei, a political scientist at the Shanghai Jiaotong University. "Class enemies play an important role in the ideology of the revolutionary party, but almost none in the ideology of the ruling party. Quite opposite, a ruling party strives to emphasize harmony and cooperation between different classes of the country," Hu explained.

While some Chinese pundits are grappling to present the current transfer of power as a watershed for the Communist Party in the new century, other watchers are hunting for clues on whether the change in the leadership faces is anything more than just a generational change for the same old party. "As long as there is no political reform, there is no real political change," said one Western diplomat here.

It is uncertain whether the retiring generation of leaders will form a National Security Council - a secretive ruling council that could influence party decisions behind the scenes and may try to block any chance for genuine political reform.

Hu Jintao is not Jiang's candidate for successor, but had been selected by late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to take over eventually. Jiang has actually been promoting his own protege, Zeng Qinghong, who emerged as No 5 in the new leadership lineup.

An earlier report by the influential International Institute for Strategic Studies in London asserted that the presence of Jiang's protege in the politburo would serve to circumvent Hu's rule. "China is therefore entering a period of heightened political instability," the think-tank said in its annual strategic survey.

To complicate the power-jockeying even further, Jiang has opted to retain his key position as chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission, a post that Deng Xiaoping held on to after he had given up his other formal titles.

Jiang remains as China's head of the state until March, when the National People's Congress or parliament meets to vote on government posts. Retiring with Jiang are five other elder leaders, including the hardliner Li Peng, much hated for his decision to dispatch tanks against the unarmed students in 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests, and the no-nonsense premier Zhu Rongji, respected for his ambitious drive that finally brought China into the World Trade Organization last year.

In with the new leaders are mainly technocrats, bureaucrats and a few local party officials who have excelled in their respective provinces. Among them are Vice Premier Wu Bangguo, who emerged as No 2 and is expected to take over the chairmanship of the National People's Congress from Li Peng, and Vice Premier Wen Jiabao, third in line, who will probably take over the premiership from Zhu Rongji in March.

Little is known about the new party chief Hu, who has been at the peak of China's political power for 10 years but revealed few of his true political colors. An engineering graduate from the prestigious Qinghua University, he stayed on as a political instructor during the violent political clashes that took place there during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) but fought against the radicals.

He served in poor Gansu province and troubled Tibet before being promoted to the party politburo in 1992. He was party secretary in Tibet in 1989 when soldiers opened fire on Tibetans protesting against Chinese rule. Hu became vice president in 1998 and was named Jiang's deputy chairman the next year on the Central Military Commission that controls the army.

Hu's rise is credited to his ability to keep a low profile and avoid political infighting behind the scenes. However, his ascendance to power means he will have to abandon his humble ways and grapple with some tough political choices in the next five years.

(Inter Press Service)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DK16Ad02.html

[Thunder90]

Even Mikhal Gorbachev hinted at what was going to be the Chinese solution as being the best for the Soviet Union, and Gorbachev tried to implement it. However, the changes from the east were too strong and overwhelmed the USSR. Putin, United Russia, the KPRF, and the CSTO (Kazakhstan, Belarus, ect) realize that the Chinese and Venezuelan solutions work the best.

[Psalm 144]

What a lost opportunity in the 90s.

[Gay State Conservative]

The USSR is back....and this time it has hard currency.Very,VERY bad news for freedom loving people everywhere (not just in the Republic of Georgia).

[Moonman62]

the secret of china success is their leaders are communist in name ONLY, their society is capitalistic.

The other distinction is that China favored small businesses, whereas the Russians favored the large, corrupt oligarchs.

[Thunder90]

Now, since Putin, there are many more Russian small businesses.