Strategic Trust-Building

The announcements that Chinese President Hu Jintao would attend this week’s Nuclear Security Summit in Washington and that the U.S. Department of Treasury would defer its anticipated announcement on China’s currency seemed to signal a positive turn in U.S.-China relations.  After the high-profile disputes over human rights, Taiwan, Tibet, and trade that dominated relations between the two powers in the first quarter of 2010, both governments are expressing greater confidence in the near-term prospects for U.S.-China ties.

The relationship between the two governments is not the only thing that is on the mend; the political establishments of the two countries are also stepping up their engagement with each other.  Coordinated by EWI, a delegation of prominent U.S. Democrats and Republicans met with senior representatives of the Communist Party of China (CPC) from March 31 to April 2 in Beijing in the “First U.S.-China High-Level Political Party Leaders Dialogue.”  Hailed by long-time China watchers as “the final chapter in the story of U.S.-China normalization” and “the most significant development in U.S.-China relations in a decade,” the Dialogue provided an unprecedented opportunity for authoritative figures from the three parties to discuss issues of common concern.  Along with EWI and the CPC, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) played significant roles in the planning of this historic visit.

Both the Chinese and foreign media noted the significance of this event.  As the Associated Press put it, “In another about face, senior representatives of the Democrat and Republican parties were in Beijing this week for talks with the Communist Party…While Britain's Labor Party and other Western democratic parties have held such parleys before, the talks were the highest-level discussions ever between American and Chinese politicians…”

The U.S. delegation comprised eighteen members; the ten principal U.S. delegates were:

• The Honorable Madeleine K. Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State
• Mr. Lorne Craner President of the International Republican Institute
• The Honorable Thomas A. Daschle, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader
• The Honorable Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont; and former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee
• Mr. Mike Duncan, former Chairman of the Republican National Committee
• Mr. John Mroz, President and CEO of the EastWest Institute
• Mr. H. Ross Perot, Jr., Chairman-elect of the EastWest Institute
• The Honorable Vin Weber, former U.S. Congressman (Minnesota-02)
• The Honorable Richard S. Williamson, former U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan
• Mr. Kenneth Wollack, President of the National Democratic Institute

The Chinese delegation included:

• Mr. Wang Jiarui, Minister, International Department of the Communist Party of China (IDCPC)
• Mr. Liu Jieyi, Vice Minister, IDCPC
• Mr. Li Jun, Director-General, Research Office, IDCPC
• Ms. Xu Luping, Director-General, Bureau of North American, Oceanian and Scandinavian Affairs, IDCPC
• Mr. Ma Hui, Deputy Director-General, Bureau of North American, Oceanian and Scandinavian Affairs, IDCPC
• Mr. Li Mingxiang, Deputy Director-General, Bureau of North American, Oceanian and Scandinavian Affairs, IDCPC
• Mr. Shi Guohui, Assistant Director-General, Bureau of North American, Oceanian and Scandinavian Affairs, IDCPC

In addition to meetings with top officials in the IDCPC, the U.S. delegation also met with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, State Councilor Dai Bingguo, and senior party and government officials in the CPC’s United Front Work Department and State Council Taiwan Affairs Office.  U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman hosted a luncheon in honor of the Chinese and U.S. delegates.

In the course of the three days of discussions, the two sides exchanged views on a wide range of domestic topics, including the U.S. and Chinese political and social systems, methods of gauging national sentiment in the two countries, human rights, Taiwan, Tibet, and the impact of the Internet on the two societies; and also on international topics such as Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar, non-proliferation and climate change.

EWI, working with NDI and IRI, will coordinate a reciprocal visit by the CPC to Washington in late 2010.

For full report, click here

• (Interfax Ukraine) NATO's military headquarters in Europe reported that there are over 1,000 Russian troops in Ukraine now.
   
• NATO provided what it said is evidence: satellite images showing Russian troops engaged in military operations inside Ukraine. "The images, captured in late August, depict Russian self-propelled artillery units moving in a convoy through the Ukrainian countryside and then preparing for action by establishing firing positions in the area of Krasnodon, Ukraine.”
   
• A top Ukrainian army officer said a "full-scale invasion" of his country was under way, as a U.S. official said up to 1,000 Russian troops had crossed Ukraine's southern border to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The UN Security Council was set to hold a special session on Ukraine at 19:00 UTC on Thursday over reports on the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russia’s envoy to the OSCE denied Kyiv's claims that Russia has sent troops to help militants in eastern Ukraine.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Claims of a Russian military invasion of Ukraine were sparked by Kyiv’s attempts to justify its military setbacks in the east and downplay the results of recent talks in Minsk, Russia’s EU envoy said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The analytical center of the NSDC reported that the fighting near Luhansk and Ilovaisk continues, and the place of militants in Luhansk region has been taken by the Russian army.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said that reports of the appearance of Russian troops on Ukrainian territory are a sign of the beginning of a full-scale war.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The army of the self-proclaimed state of Novorossiya in war-torn east Ukraine took control of Donetsk regional city of Novoazovsk and several neighboring settlements in a counteroffensive operation.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) No details about the movements of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be made public, First Deputy Head of Presidential Administration Hennadiy Zubko said.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The director of NATO’s Comprehensive Crisis and Operations Management Center said that combat operations in east Ukraine will end up in a complete deadlock and the eastern militants will keep the territories under their control now.

• Ukraine appealed for NATO's help after reporting that a huge convoy of tanks and weaponry from Russia was moving through the southeast of the country.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Talks between Ukraine and Russia in Minsk on August 26 were fruitless, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told a government meeting.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Separatist militias claimed to have made further advances, inflicting heavy losses on the Ukrainian troops. At least 129 servicemen of the Ukrainian army and the National Guard have surrendered to the militia in the settlement of Starobeshevo.
   
• Russian servicemen who had been detained in the Donetsk region of Ukraine have been delivered to a Kyiv detention facility, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.
   
• Caught off guard by the crisis in Ukraine, NATO plans to create a "spearhead" rapid deployment force and a "more visible" presence in Eastern Europe to assuage concerns about Russian intentions, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.
   
• Moscow said it will take steps to respond if NATO begins regular troop rotations in the easternmost NATO-member countries.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic will arrive in Ukraine on August 28 to present a report on the human rights situation in the country, the UN said.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Kyiv government must launch a nationwide dialogue in Ukraine immediately to make sure that the rights of all ethnic groups and minorities are equally respected, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Ukrainian government plans to endorse a Ukraine-NATO action program for 2014 at its Wednesday session.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia’s Red Cross said it will accompany a second relief aid convoy to Ukraine if the government decides to send the cargo.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stated that it believes that before making a decision on the sending of humanitarian aid from Russia it is necessary to hold consultations with the participation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the trilateral contact group and the OSCE.
   
• Russian journalists claimed to have been attacked while investigating reports that soldiers were secretly buried after being killed in Ukraine. There has been no official confirmation of the deaths of paratroopers allegedly buried outside Pskov. However, a military official in Voronezh, a city close to the border with eastern Ukraine, said that an elite airborne platoon commander from Pskov, Anton Korolenko, has been buried there.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russia, Ukraine and the European Union will meet in Brussels on September 12 to discuss the Association Agreement between Kyiv and the EU.

• Ten Russian soldiers were detained in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The Russian soldiers were captured with documents and weapons on them, the Security Service said. They did not resist detention. 
   
• (RIA Novosti) A source in the Russian Defense Ministry said that the ten Russian military servicemen detained by Ukraine’s military were patrolling the border and most likely crossed it by accident.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) A group of Russian servicemen detained in eastern Ukraine did not get lost, but were carrying out a special task, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) spokesman Andriy Lysenko alleged.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) An NSDC spokesman said that the Russian servicemen detained in Ukraine are not prisoners of war but detainees.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukraine received a Russian note regarding its intention to send a new convoy with humanitarian aid for eastern Ukraine.
   
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the crisis in Ukraine could not be solved by a further military escalation or without dialogue with representatives of the country's Russian-speaking eastern regions.
   
• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the summit of the Customs Union and Ukraine in Minsk, Belarus.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russia will have to take measures in response to Kyiv’s implementation of the EU Association Agreement, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) President Vladimir Putin said he favors Ukraine's broader interaction with the Customs Union, but doubts this will be feasible after the enforcement of Ukraine's Association Agreement with the European Union.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Militants from the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” claimed to have seized the strategically important height, Saur-Mogila, assuming control of the border area with Russia that stretches into the Sea of Azov.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The Ukrainian military was encircled by militants in the area of Ilovaisk near Donetsk.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Militants were attempting to break through the encirclement of Donetsk.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) A spokesman for the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” said that they will insist on exchanging all captives according to the “all-for-all” principle and will not agree to any further compromises. Militants presently hold around 150 Ukrainian soldiers hostage, while the Ukrainian army has captured at least 350. 
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian President Poroshenko announced that the early parliamentary election will take place on October 26, 2014.

• Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov stated that Russia is hoping to send a second humanitarian convoy to southeastern Ukraine using the same route and parameters and agreements on that need to be reached this week.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The Russian Red Cross was ready to accompany a second convoy to Ukraine and had already set up five teams of volunteers and workers for that.
   
• Ukraine said an armored column including 10 tanks entered from Russia early on the 25th as the government in Moscow unveiled plans to send a second convoy with humanitarian aid into its neighbor's rebel-held territory.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Army units of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic entered the settlement of Yelenovka, driving out Ukrainian troops.
   
• (RIA Novosti) A Tochka-U ballistic missile landed on the outskirts of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine for the first time since the conflict broke out.
   
• Armed pro-Russian rebels paraded dozens of captured Ukrainian soldiers through the streets of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on the afternoon of the 24th, in the rebel stronghold's counterprotest to Ukraine's Independence Day celebrations in other parts of the country.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Two journalists of the Crimean Telegraph newspaper, Evgeniya Koroleva and Maxim Vasilenko, went missing in the area of the military operation in eastern Ukraine.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian troops managed to stop a larger part of a convoy of military vehicles which entered Ukraine from the border with Russia near Novoazovsk, the head of the Information Resistance group Dmytro Tymchuk said. "With regard to Novoazovsk-Mariupol, there is no open invasion by Russia. A convoy tried to break through, it was blocked, and only a few armored vehicles broke through."
   
• (ITAR-TASS) A top German official said that Germany expects the new humanitarian convoy Russia plans to send to Ukraine’s embattled southeast will be coordinated with the Kyiv authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Verkhovna Rada Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov said diplomacy alone cannot settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine effectively. “Only the Ukrainian armed forces and National Guard can put an end to this war and liberate Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said peace in the zone of the anti-terrorist operation in Ukraine's east will not be achieved at the expense of the country's sovereignty or territorial integrity.
   
• (RIA Novosti) Russia has no plans to participate in any activities during the NATO summit in Wales, Russia’s Permanent Mission to NATO told RIA Novosti.

• (ITAR-TASS) The Russian humanitarian aid convoy unilaterally began to move towards Luhansk, crossing the Ukrainian border without clearance from Ukrainian border guards or a Red Cross escort and ignoring existing cargo clearing accords. The Russian Foreign Ministry declared the weeklong delay at the border “intolerable” and accused Kyiv of deliberately stalling it. 
   
• Ukraine charged Russia with violating its borders by moving the trucks into the rebel-held east of the country after a weeklong delay at the border. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Russian media reported that the convoy included about 100 trucks. 
   
• (ITAR-TASS) Separatist militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in the south-east of Ukraine were ready to ensure security of Russia’s humanitarian convoy in Luhansk. 
   
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said he doesn't rule out that the fact that Russia's humanitarian convoy has crossed the border into Ukraine is a provocation to be used for subsequent accusations of Kyiv of an attack on the convoy.
   
• (ITAR-TASS) The head of Ukraine’s Security Service said that Ukrainian military will not use air force aircraft against the Russian convoy carrying relief supplies which entered Ukraine.
   
• Russia’s foreign ministry warned Ukraine not to take any action against its humanitarian convoy.
   
• The EU’s foreign policy chief’s office said that Russia's decision to send a convoy of aid trucks across the border into eastern Ukraine without Kyiv's consent or an escort of international observers is a clear violation of Ukraine's border.
   
• The crossing by the Russian humanitarian convoy into Ukraine without Kyiv's permission is unacceptable, said the United States Embassy in Russia.
   
• (RIA Novosti) The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Kyiv is conducting a full-on military “cleansing” of the eastern Ukrainian cities of Luhansk and Donetsk before the country’s independence day on August 24.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) The drivers of Russian trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine will next drive military vehicles that are being illegally sent into Ukraine, Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said.
   
• (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held consultations with the leaders of parliamentary factions to discuss the possibility of dissolving the Verkhovna Rada