Russia： a year of fighting for the ＂fighting nation＂

　　On December 15th, in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held talks with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin in his hometown. This is Putin’s second visit to Japan as president after 11 years. Photo courtesy of vision china

　　As a "fighting nation", Russia’s 2016 can be described as "a year to continue fighting". Playing back the war situation and counting the battlefield, Russia has achieved a lot of achievements this year. In 2016, Russian diplomacy had both a long-planned "point breakthrough" and an unexpected "flying fortune", which seemed to become the "biggest winner" and "the best winner" at once, while Putin became the "terminator of the end of history". On December 14th, Russian President Vladimir Putin topped the list of "the most powerful people in the world" published by Forbes magazine in 2016 for four consecutive years. It can be seen that in the current international relations, people "can support him or oppose him; You can praise him or belittle him, but you can’t ignore him … …”

　　In the Middle East: Fighting with War

　　On December 16, the Russian Defense Ministry officially announced that the Syrian government forces had completely liberated the eastern part of Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria. So far, the Bashar government has fully controlled five major cities in Syria, and the Syrian civil war has turned a turning point. Russia has taken the lead in the "chase" of fighting terrorism in the Middle East with the United States.

　　Over the past year or so since sending troops to Syria, Russia has dispatched aviation to carry out intensive air strikes of more than 10,000 sorties. The domestic aircraft carrier, new cruise missiles, improved warships and submarines have all gone into battle, and they have continuously carried out long-range precision strikes against terrorist targets in Syria, which has not only dealt a heavy blow to extremist organizations such as the "Islamic State", but also completely reversed the domestic situation in Syria and changed the power pattern in the Middle East. More importantly, the Russian army used the "training ground" of Syria to train troops and weapons, which vividly demonstrated the fighting will and momentum of the fighting nation.

　　In the war on terrorism in the Middle East, Russia and the United States have always been "you hit you, I hit me", with occasional ventilation and little interaction. The agreement reached by the two sides on the Syrian ceasefire twice in one year has become a dead letter due to differences. However, it was through strong intervention that Russia not only won the moral high ground, but also took control of the Syrian issue and strengthened Russia’s right to speak in the Middle East.

　　Over the past year, Russia has taken Syria as the starting point, adjusted its relations with countries in the Middle East and revitalized the Middle East chess game. On August 16, Russian warplanes took off from Hamadan Air Force Base in Iran for the first time and carried out air strikes against "Islamic State" elements in Syria. This is the first time that Iran opened its military base to foreign countries after World War II. The Americans exclaimed, "This is the treatment that the United States never enjoyed in Pahlavi’s Iran."

　　The approach of Russia and Iraq is only one aspect of Russia’s success in the Middle East chess game. A few days ago, the Turkish Foreign Minister announced that Turkey, Iran and Russia will meet in Moscow on December 27th to discuss the Syrian issue. A year ago, on December 3, 2015, Putin still stressed in his State of the Union address that Russia will not forgive Turkey’s betrayal, and Turkey needs to pay the price for what it has done. Economic sanctions such as "banning the import of tomatoes" are not enough.

　　Only half a year later, Russian-Turkish relations dramatically reversed overnight. On June 27th, Turkish President Erdogan sent a letter to Putin, apologizing to the Russian side for the shooting down of Russian warplanes by the Turkish military. On July 16, after the attempted military coup in Turkey, Putin took the initiative to call Erdogan to express condolences and publicly expressed his support for his efforts to crack down on the coup forces. Erdogan grabbed this "olive branch", struck while the iron was hot, and went to Moscow in August to shake hands with Putin. Subsequently, Putin visited Istanbul in October, Lavrov visited the Mediterranean town of Alanya in Turkey in December, and Turkish Prime Minister Yildirim visited Moscow &hellip for the first time in early December; … There is basically no transition period for the deterioration and relaxation of relations between Russia and Turkey, from being incompatible with each other and drawing swords against each other to letting bygones be bygones and shaking hands. This dramatic change has become an important harvest and highlight of Russian diplomacy in 2016.

　　To the west: stop the war with war

　　If Russia is "fighting with war" in the Middle East and forced the United States to sit down and talk about the Syrian issue through the aggressive war on terrorism, then on the Ukrainian issue, Russia is more likely to use "mixed war" to deal with the West, which not only successfully freezes the "hot war" in eastern Ukraine, but also makes the internal affairs of the United States and Europe unable to escape the "shadow of Putin".

　　On December 16, when Obama was asked about "Russian hackers helped to elect Trump" at his last year-end press conference, he replied: "We said, and I will confirm that this happened at the highest level of the Russian government. I’ll leave it to you to judge whether a senior Russian official acted without Vladimir Putin’s knowledge and decided to interfere with the American election … … In Russia, there are not many things that will not go through Putin. " Undoubtedly, Putin "jumped into the Yellow River and could not be washed away".

　　Americans have always interfered in other countries’ elections, but now it is the American elections that are "interfered" by others. And this "other person" is what Obama calls "smaller, weaker and not innovative" Russia. Russian netizens sneered: "I don’t know who is the world superpower at present? The powerful United States even complained that Russia interfered in its general election. "

　　Americans’ suspicions are not groundless. Since the Ukrainian crisis, Russia, which has suffered from multiple encirclement and suppression of public opinion war, war of words, diplomatic war and sanctions war, has launched a "Russian version of mixed war", mixing unconventional means such as public opinion war, information war, psychological war, spy war, network war and economic war with the original traditional means of war, and launching all-pervasive asymmetric retaliation against the United States and Europe, making it difficult for the United States and Europe to parry for a while.

　　It is against this background that the new version of Russian Foreign Policy Conception signed and approved by Putin on November 30th added two goals for Russian diplomacy, namely, "consolidating Russia’s position as an influential pole in the world today" and "strengthening the position of Russian media in the global public opinion space, so that Russian views can be widely spread in international public opinion", which increased the number of Russian diplomatic goals from 9 to 11, which further showed that Russia paid more attention to its international status and "soft power".

　　The battle between Russia and the United States and Europe is far from "fighting to the end", but "seeking peace through war" and "confronting with asymmetry" for "absolute equality". Just after struggling with the United States and Europe for more than two years, Putin released goodwill to the West in his State of the Union address on December 1. One of the most striking words is: "We don’t want to confront anyone, which is unnecessary for us, our partners and the international community. Unlike some foreign colleagues who regard Russia as an enemy, we do not look for and have never found any enemies. We need friends, but we don’t allow our interests to be violated or ignored. We want to dominate our own destiny, create the present and the future by ourselves, and we don’t need other people’s tips and unsolicited suggestions. "

　　Relying on the East: Maintaining War with Peace

　　The reason why Putin can fight with the United States and Europe in the western front without scruple is related to his strategic courage and domineering, and more directly related to his accurate strategic judgment — — "There is no war on the eastern front" has become Russia’s reliance on the western front. As "both Europe and Asia, non-Europe and Africa; East and west, not east Africa and west; Russia, a special country that is both left and right, not left and not right, has been advancing in contradiction between East and West. The general direction of Russian diplomacy is from Yeltsin’s "wholeheartedly going west" in his early days to Yeltsin’s "looking around in all directions" in his later years, from Putin’s "going east and west" in his early days to "controlling the west from the east" later.

　　In order to further create a big pattern of Eurasian cooperation in favor of Russia, Putin called for the establishment of a "Greater Eurasian Partnership" with the participation of the Eurasian Economic Union, India, China, CIS countries and other countries at the 20th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June, and put an updated concept into Russia’s profound strategic plan. Just as analysts speculated that Russia’s eastward diplomacy was "going to the West through the East" or "going west", Putin stressed in his State of the Union address on December 1: "Russia’s active eastward policy is not out of temporary consideration, nor because its relations with the United States or the European Union have turned cold, but out of long-term national interests and world development trends."

　　On December 17, Putin ended his one-and-a-half-day trip to Japan, and Abe finally got Putin’s "looking back and smiling" with the sincerity of "taking care of Russia". During his visit to Japan, Putin forced Abe to "wait around" by "arriving late" and took away a thick stack of economic cooperation agreements, thus achieving a "point breakthrough" in western diplomacy. On the other hand, Abe didn’t earn face, Lizi Lizi didn’t arrive, and his plan on the territorial issue was almost completely lost. He could only let Putin, who was full of ambition, go away. More interestingly, Putin praised Sino-Russian relations in an interview with Japanese reporters in the Kremlin a few days ago, suggesting that Japan should take Sino-Russian relations as a model when developing Japan-Russia relations, which made Japan deeply realize the embarrassment of "supporting role".

　　In fact, Sino-Russian relations are not only a model of Sino-Japanese relations, but also a model of great power exchanges. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation. The heads of state of China and Russia met five times during the year, making timely new strategic plans and arrangements for the development of bilateral relations, and the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Russia has reached a higher level.

　　Besides, There are many firsts in Sino-Russian relations this year: the Joint Statement on Strengthening Global Strategic Stability issued by the two heads of state for the first time, the Sino-Russian Statement on Promoting International Law issued by the two foreign ministers for the first time, the successful completion of the first joint inspection of the national boundary of more than 4,300 kilometers and the issuance of a joint statement, the successful conclusion of the first joint scientific research in the Arctic, the first joint military exercise in the South China Sea, and the first joint activities of Chinese and Russian warships in the waters adjacent to the Diaoyu Islands. The first meeting of China-Russia Regional Cooperation Council, the first China-Russia Cyberspace Development and Security Forum held in Moscow, the first joint voice of "Sade" between China and Russia, the first joint anti-missile computer exercise between China and Russia, the first Sino-Russian equipment manufacturing and scientific and technological innovation Expo held in Russia, and the first card issuing cooperation between unionpay international and Russian national payment card companies & HELIP; … In the world where "black swans" frequently flew out in 2016, the all-encompassing Sino-Russian relations not only brought benefits to the two countries and their peoples, but also injected strong positive energy into regional stability and world peace, and became an important ballast stone for maintaining world peace and stability.

　　Beijing, December 21st