The Ukraine crisis has objectively postponed the beginning of such a comprehensive game. The profound external reason behind the crisis had been Putin’s idea to create a Eurasian union capable of being one pole in the modern world, in fundamental conflict with the U.S. vision of maintaining existing security and economic structure in Europe after its strategic shift east.

It is undeniable that the U.S. also had a serious strategic miscalculation in handling the Ukraine crisis. America thought that Russia would helplessly accept the overthrow of the Yanukovich government as it had helplessly accepted the victory of West-supported Yushenko in the second round of presidential election to replace Yanukovich who won the first round. With this, the possibility of Ukraine joining the Eurasian Union would disappear and the crisis would end soon, allowing the U.S. to focus on its strategic shift east. Russia unexpectedly took Crimea and supported southeast Ukraine in making trouble for the new Ukraine government, leading to prolonged turbulences in the region and precluding a prompt exit by the U.S. Against this backdrop, the U.S. must be mindful that its policy towards China should help prevent China and Russia to become too close to each other. Thus the deployment of diplomatic resources and the formulation of polices have to take into account the Ukraine crisis.

In short, the intensification of Russia-U.S. tensions put an end to the reactivation of their relations, has an objective impact on America’s strategic shift east and delays the beginning of a comprehensive strategic game between China and U.S. If China-U.S. relationship can be described as one of competition with deepening mutual dependence, the later such a game begins, the better chance for the two countries to move towards a cooperation-centered game instead of a confrontational one.

Zheng Yu is a Professor at the Institute of Russian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

This article was first published at Chinausfocus.com To see the original version please visit http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/russian-factor-postpones-comprehensive-strategic-game-between-us-and-china/

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