CHINESE LEADER HOLDS TALKS IN MOSCOW…

Chinese vice premier and foreign minister Qian Qichen yesterday held talks in Moscow with Boris Yeltsin and Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov. All the principals expressed their satisfaction with the continued deepening of bilateral relations and predicted that the upcoming Russian-Chinese summit, scheduled for late April, would accelerate this process. In comments following the talks, the two foreign ministers highlighted a pair of themes: that the Russian-Chinese partnership is contributing to the construction of a "multi-polar" system of international relations, and that the partnership is not directed against any third country.

Chinese and Russian leaders have frequently contrasted their so-called "multi-polarism" to what they claim is a "uni-polar" approach employed by Washington (and by extension, NATO) to promote its own world domination. Primakov also said that increasingly close ties between Russia and China are in no way conditioned by — or a response to — NATO’s enlargement. (Xinhua, Itar-Tass, Interfax, March 25) That last claim has been at least implicitly belied by repeated Russian references to its ties with Beijing and other non-European powers as a potential counterbalance to NATO.

…As India and Russia Sign Bilateral Agreements.