A cautious view emerges in Moscow
Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, FEB 15, 2017
accessed Feb 24, 2017
● 「聯俄制中」之戰略已破局。
● 美國家安全顧問弗林辭職引動此新情勢
● 普丁將於月後赴北京參加「一帶一路」會議，重新顯示中俄之合作。
● 據說俄美官員今後見面可能不如預期中熱烈，有待觀察。
林中斌 2017.2.24
● The arrangement to “move toward Moscow against Beijing” for Washington may have been spoiled beyond repair for now.
● The resignation of Trump's National Security Advisor Michael Flynn may have triggered the new trend.
● Putin will attend the “Belt Road Initiative Conference” in Beijing in the coming spring where Moscow - Beijing cooperation, if not solidarity, will be in display.
● It has been conjectured that Russian officials when meeting their American counterparts may “give them a cold shoulder”, which remains to be seen.
Chong-Pin Lin Feb. 24. 2017
The champagne toasts that some Russian officials quaffed just a few short months ago to celebrate the victory of Donald Trump have gone a bit flat.
Euphoria was already starting to cede to caution before Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser and a perceived friend of Russia, resigned. That cemented the uneasy mood.
The departure of Flynn on Monday over his contacts with the Russian ambassador to Washington was the latest in a series of mixed signals from Trump and his advisers on a host of issues important to Russia, particularly the lifting of economic sanctions.
Now, many prominent political figures are wondering whether hopes for change were premature, and whether Moscow will inevitably remain Washington’s main boogeyman. On Tuesday, the Pentagon was confrontational, accusing Moscow of secretly deploying a cruise missile system that violates a 1987 treaty on intermediate-range missiles based on land.
Vladimir R. Soloviev, the host of a noisy Sunday night talk show on state-run television viewed as reflecting Kremlin policy, this week issued one of the most negative public assessments yet of Trump.
“Don’t be charmed by Trump,” he said in a message he addressed to all politicians and experts. “Don’t think that Trump is a pro-Russian politician. Don’t hope that Trump, in the interests of Russia, will in any way go against the basic rooted interests of America.”
How things have changed since November, when the Russian Parliament greeted Trump’s election with a round of applause and a prominent political leader toasted the victory on national television. Only one man, Putin, really sets Russia’s foreign policy course, however. And he was never publicly celebratory.
In recent years, Putin’s main foreign policy goal has been to resurrect the time when the United States and the Soviet Union, as the two great nuclear superpowers, were the main arbitrators of the global order. Lacking the might of the Soviet Union, Putin has tried to punch above his weight by shocking the world with unexpected tactics like seizing Crimea, destabilizing Ukraine, and deploying his military in Syria to shore up President Bashar Assad.
President Barack Obama responded by referring to Russia as a declining regional power. The two men had a poisonous personal relationship.
Trump seemed to presage a different era with all the praise he heaped on Russia and Putin. He called for better relations with Moscow to fight the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, echoing a long-standing Putin pitch.
“There is a cautious feeling about how Trump and his advisers designated the possible ways of improving relations with Russia,” said Vladimir Frolov, an international affairs analyst. “This has frightened the Kremlin because it does not correspond to Russia’s interests.”
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