Russia's season for summits By M K Bhadrakumar

Russia has been invited to two summits with the West in the weeks ahead, ostensibly to discuss security cooperation in areas like Afghanistan. But the real motivation for the United States and its European allies is to try and deflect Moscow from an ongoing reorientation towards China because of its energy market.

What emerges is that the trajectory of Russia-China cooperation is beginning to substantially impact on the Western countries' core interests, and the latter cannot but aspire to try to deflect it. The US reset with Russia already has an unobtrusive objective of incrementally eroding the Russia-China strategic understanding so as to isolate China, especially in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

How Russia and China safeguard their growing strategic partnership from Western pressures will become clearer in the coming period. But safeguard it they will. For Russia, strengthening its partnership with China gains it more strategic space, since it concurrently acquires the leverage to compel the West to negotiate with it. Looking at it another way, the growing strategic partnership with China enhances Russia's capacity to withstand Western pressures.  More at:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/LJ02Ag01.html