What could Sochi offer for big-country relations?
- By Yu Sui
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E-mail China.org.cn, February 20, 2014
This author believes that President Xi’s presence at the Sochi Winter Olympics manifests the importance of the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination. This author also believes that, based on the principle and spirit for constructing the new type of big-power relationship between China and the US, President Xi Jinping would do the same thing if the Winter Olympics were held in the United States.
Third, the US is caught in a dilemma but the Olympic Games offer an opportunity for good interaction in the Russia-US relations.
US-Russia relationship has encountered some problems, but the United States still chose to attend the Sochi Winter Olympics in a rational manor.
The White House first dismissed a proposal made by Senator Lindsey Graham to boycott the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics on the excuse of the Snowden incident. This proposal was widely opposed, from the White House to the US Olympic Committee, and some senators in the Congress also criticized Graham’s proposal as “a big mistake.” The US Olympic delegation to Sochi comprises of 230 athletes from 38 states, and they will take part in all 15 competition events and compete for 94 gold medals out of the total of 98.
The United States has also paid high attention to the security of the Sochi Winter Olympics and sought to cooperate with the Russian side on security issues. The US president, secretary of state and defense secretary all expressed their willingness to provide anti-terror assistance for the Olympic Games. On February 4, in a meeting with his national security team, President Obama instructed them to cooperate with Russia to guarantee the safety of the Winter Olympics.
The command ship USS Mount Whitney and frigate USS Taylor from the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet have also sailed into the Black Sea as scheduled in a security move to cope with any possible emergencies during the Sochi Winter Olympics.
Some media reports chose to play up the absence of US president, vice president, former president or the first lady from the Sochi Winter Olympics, speculating the US was giving a “cold shoulder” to Russia and magnifying the “distrust between the US and Russia has thrown their bilateral relations to a low again.” A report by the Chosun Ilbo of South Korea on January 19 was even entitled “Sochi Winter Olympics a new battlefield for the tussle between Obama and Putin.” These were all far-fetched and over-exaggerated. This writer believes that the US-Russian cooperation on the security front for the Sochi Winter Olympics could be an opportunity for them to improve their overall relations in the future.
Yu Sui is a Professor with the China Center for Contemporary World Studies.
This article was first published at Chinausfocus.com To see the original version please visit http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/what-could-sochi-offer-for-big-country-relations/
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