Americans can wean Russia away from China but it is unlikely to happen: Expert on Biden-Putin meet

US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Wednesday smiled and greeting each other awkwardly with a handshake outside a villa in Geneva, before heading in for a highly-anticipated summit. However, Professor Harsh V Pant told ETV Bharat Senior Correspondent Chandrakala Choudhury that Mr Biden is not really in a position to change the fundamentals of the relationship as there is a lot of disenchantment with Russia within the Democratic Party in America.

New Delhi:Amid much chaos, U.S President Joe Biden met his Russian counterpart Vladamir Putin at the 18th-century manor house in Geneva on Wednesday. While meeting, both the leaders shook hands and exchanged warm greetings at the opening of the daylong summit. The meeting comes at a time when the diplomatic relations between U.S and Russia has been at a low especially after President Biden called Putin a ‘killer’. The relations between the two nations turned sour on a range of issues including Biden repeatedly calling out Putin for malicious cyberattacks by Russian-backed hackers on US interests.

Also, it can be viewed that if the summit is likely to prompt a bit of concern for Beijing, India on the other hand, is hoping that the two sides sort out their differences and get along with each other because better relations between Russia-US will certainly make it easier for India to tackle the rising influence and Chinese hegemony in the region. But that seems to be a far cry.

Meanwhile, a foreign policy expert pointed out that the meeting between the two leaders will not likely result in any breakthroughs.

Speaking to ETV Bharat, Professor Harsh V Pant, Director, Studies and Head of the Strategic Studies Programme at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi said, “The meeting is largely for the two leaders to engage with each other and probably to lay down some deadlines for each other because the relations between the two nations are at the lowest end. Mr Biden is not really in a position to change the fundamentals of the relationship as there is a lot of disenchantment with Russia within the Democratic Party in America.

The domestic political compulsions are such that Biden cannot take the relationship with Putin in a positive direction. For Putin the reliance on China is very huge, therefore, I don’t think there is any question of Russia weakening ties with China in pursuit of better relations with the West”.

Asia’s stakes in Russia-US relation

When asked about the stakes in the Biden-Putin summit, Prof Pant said that as far as stakes are concerned, in the ideal world, one would have hoped that Americans can wean Russia away from China but it is unlikely to happen given the fact that Russia’s foreign policy is presumed to be anti-American which is very similar to that of China.

“Therefore, Russia-China engagement will remain much more substantive in the foreseeable future than any Russian outreach to the West. But in some ways, a country like India would like stable US-Russia ties so that it has some space to manoeuvre and it would hope Russia to make independent choices because at the moment Russia is vehemently against the concept of Indo-Pacific or Quad- means to contain China.

India would like Russian engagement in the Indo-Pacific, which is something that works well from India’s perspective. But the ties between Russia and the West are so appalling at this moment that any sign of weakening of China-Russia ties is nearly not possible”, he added.

This is the first meeting of Biden in a decade with the Russian president, whom he last met when Putin was prime minister and he was serving as vice president, in March of 2011.

The summit is also the first meeting between US and Russian leaders since Putin met Donald Trump in Helsinki in 2018.

The summit between the two leaders which was expected to last longer ended in two hours and 38 minutes according to the White House. Meanwhile, following the summit, Russian President Vladamir Putin was the first of the two leaders to hold a solo new conference.

During the press briefing, he said that there was no hostility between himself and Biden and called their talks quite constructive with both sides seeking common ground.

But as pointed out by the expert, Moscow and Beijing are now so tightly linked with each other that the Biden administration will find it difficult to separate them, even if it tries.