By Amy Knight
The Globe and Mail
December 15, 2000
Russian President Vladimir Putin's three-day state visit to Canada, which begins on Sunday following his trip to Cuba, marks the end of a year of frenetic travel for a leader whose previous experience abroad was limited to a stint for the KGB in Soviet-controlled East Germany during the 1980s. By the end of the year, he will have made 20 trips abroad since his election as President in March.
Mr. Putin's wanderlust marks a sharp contrast to the couch-potato reclusiveness of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, who spent much of his second term in office fighting off illness. What is Mr. Putin trying to achieve?
Mr. Putin's domestic critics have claimed that he travels a lot because he is unsure of what he should be doing at home. In their view, by creating the illusion of statesmanlike activity he wants to distract people's attention from how little progress he has made toward solving Russia's problems. Given that Russia's economy is in dire straits and the war in Chechnya is still raging, Mr. Putin, indeed, has plenty to keep him busy in Moscow.
But he and his advisers have more on their minds than his image at home. They are pursuing an activist foreign policy that they hope will set Russia firmly on the world stage, while nudging the United States slightly away from the centre. The visit to Canada by Mr. Putin, who has repeatedly spoken out against a "unipolar world," dominated by the United States, should be viewed in this light.
Russian decision-makers have typically lumped Canada together with the United States in formulating their foreign policy. In this sense, Mr. Putin's trip to Canada, without even a stopover in the United States, might be seen as an attempt to set Canada apart from its southern neighbour. If this is so, then Mr. Putin probably considers the unexpected controversy over the U.S. presidential election as a fortuitous opportunity to establish a relationship with the solidly elected Prime Minister Jean Chrétien at a time when there is not yet a firm U.S. administration in place looking over Canada's shoulder.
Although Mr. Putin must realize that his Canadian counterpart is not likely to stray from the interests that Canada shares with the United States, he nonetheless will attempt, as he did in Britain, to make his Canadian hosts receptive to the idea of dealing with Russia on their own terms.
What exactly does Mr. Putin expect to gain from his Canadian visit? As with his diplomatic efforts elsewhere, he is trying to encourage foreign investments in his country by convincing Canadian businessmen that the economic climate in Russia is favourable. This will be an uphill struggle for Mr. Putin, given how little progress he has made in curbing the rampant corruption and lawlessness that pervades Russia's economy. The Russians will also try to gain sympathy in this country for their proposal of radical cuts in Russian and American strategic weapons on the condition that the 1972 ABM treaty is preserved. With George W. Bush now the president-elect, this issue is more pressing for the Russians, who fear that the Republicans will put the building of an anti-ballistic missile system, and thus the abrogation of the ABM Treaty, on their immediate agenda.
The bottom line is that Mr. Putin, in pursuing new foreign-policy initiatives, wants to be treated as a world leader and have Russia accepted as an equal with the Group of Seven industrial nations. But whether his visit to Canada will further this goal is an open question. Mr. Putin has raised eyebrows in the West by deepening ties with some of Russia's Soviet-era allies, such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea. The Kremlin's decision to sell arms to Iran is just one example of its defiance toward the United States and its allies.
And a Moscow court's conviction last week of American businessman Edmond Pope on espionage charges was another provocation. Mr. Pope, who is suffering from bone cancer and has languished in the notorious Lefortovo prison since April, is the first American to be tried on such charges in 40 years. The 20-year sentence, handed down after the judge deliberated for only a couple of hours, was the maximum for this crime under the law.
The handling of Mr. Pope's case, which normally would have resulted in nothing more than his expulsion from the country and an official protest from Moscow, was reminiscent of the bitterest period of the Cold War. Although Mr. Putin has now granted Mr. Pope a pardon, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, would never have pressed ahead with a trial and a conviction without the President's sanction.
In order to convince the leading industrial nations in the West that Russia deserves to be a member of their club, Mr. Putin will have to address some burning domestic issues -- issues that are bound to cast a shadow over his diplomatic overtures toward Canada. First, of course, there is the question of Chechnya, where the Russian military continues to commit human-rights abuses and civilian casualties are still mounting. Then there are the numerous high-profile cases of environmentalists, scientists and journalists who have been arrested.
A case that has particular resonance in Canada is that of Igor Sutyagin, a researcher at the USA/Canada Institute in Moscow who is being tried for treason after helping scholars from Carleton and York universities on a project involving civil-military relations.
And as with other such cases, the charges against Mr. Sutyagin -- giving away state secrets -- appear to be bogus.
Mr. Putin cannot have it both ways: antagonizing the West by courting "rogue states" and allowing his security services to revert to a Soviet-style modus operandi, while at the same time expecting the West to embrace Russia as an equal. Whatever his diplomatic abilities, Mr. Putin will have to do more than memorize hockey statistics and learn a few words of English if he wants to make headway with his foreign-policy initiatives. He will have to demonstrate that he is attempting to make his country into a workable democracy that not only protects the rights of its own citizens, but is hospitable to foreigners and foreign investments. For Mr. Putin, this would entail an all-out battle against corruption and also a decreased reliance on his colleagues from the KGB.
Mr. Putin's popularity ratings are now at 70 per cent, so he is in a position to bring about real changes in his country. But in order to do this he should probably spend more time at home in 2001.
Amy Knight teaches political science at Carleton University and is the author of several books on Russia, including Spies Without Cloaks: The KGB's Successors.
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