Russian President Vladimir Putin met with visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo May 14 in Sochi. Both sides agreed to try to ease bilateral tensions and resume channels of communication. The visit was the highest formal meeting between the two countries in 10 months, reported the web portal of the overseas edition of Party-run newspaper
People’s Daily. However, the two sides expressed different viewpoints on hotspot issues including Iran and Venezuela, while not touching upon Ukraine.
Dai Shangyun, a staff commentator, citied Li Yonghui, researcher at the Institute for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in saying the meeting is not a first step in thawing bilateral ties, as both nations are in a structural conflict that cannot be resolved in the short term.
How the US and Russia – arch rivals in the Cold War – can get along is at the center of the structural conflict between them, Dai wrote. The US has always considered Russia as one of the largest threats to its national security, and is now trying to prevent it from challenging the US global supremacy again. Russia, for its part, believes the US is constraining it from attaining superpower status. They lack the basis for mutual trust at the strategic level, he said.
The lack of trust also sustains the geopolitical game between the two countries, including the Venezuela and Ukraine issues, the commentator said. Take Venezuela as an example. An important pivot in Latin America, Russia can gain a geopolitical edge over the US by supporting the Maduro government. The US in turn needs to uproot any emerging threats in its backyard.
Economic and trade ties have usually been regarded as the booster for bilateral ties, but the US and Russia fall short on this point, Dai wrote. The US has long implemented economic sanctions against Russia. The total value of bilateral trade for 2018 hit US$25 billion, around one-fourth of that between China and Russia. Therefore, bilateral ties will inevitably deteriorate in any crisis that causes major concern.
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