By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW — Officials in Russia and China pushed back on Tuesday against the characterization of their countries as threats to the United States in a new national security doctrine published by the White House a day earlier.A spokesman for the Kremlin criticized Mr. Trump’s foreign policy strategy as having an “imperialist character” while the Chinese Embassy in Washington suggested that the document’s theme of “America First” reflected “outdated, zero-sum thinking.”
Every United States administration is obliged to publish its national security strategy, giving Congress a guide for its intended policies around the world. The 68-page doctrine the White House released Monday described Russia and China as “revisionist” powers for seeking a change in the American-led world order.
“After being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition returned,” the document says. Russia and China, it says, “are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”
Dmitri S. Peskov, President Vladimir V. Putin’s spokesman, responded with the Kremlin argument that the world would be a safer place if there were several powerful countries that could keep one another in check. The doctrine, he said, showed America’s continuing “aversion to the multipolar world.”Continue reading the main story
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But Mr. Peskov also noted some recent instances of security cooperation, as did President Trump in a speech about the new doctrine that took a softer line on Russia than the document did.
In the speech on Monday, Mr. Trump made no mention of Russian interference in the 2016 election, which United States intelligence agencies concluded was intended to help him win. He focused instead on a phone call on Sunday from Mr. Putin, who thanked him for information the Central Intelligence Agency had provided to the Russian security servicesthat helped them foil a terrorist plot in St. Petersburg.
Mr. Peskov also praised that tip as an “ideal example” of security cooperation.
And given the toxic view of Russia in Washington these days, several Russian foreign policy experts breathed a sigh of relief at the mere “revisionist” label. It could have been worse, Yuri Rogulyov, director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Foundation for the Study of the United States, at Moscow State University, told the Business FM radio station.
“The very idea of a ‘revisionist power’ is a departure from the position of Congress, which included Russia in the same lineup with Iran and North Korea — that is, among the rogue nations,” Mr. Rogulyov said.
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The new doctrine’s recognition of Russia as a rising power is an improvement over the views of previous administrations, Sergei A. Karaganov, a periodic Kremlin adviser on foreign policy, said in an interview. “Obviously, the new order is emerging,” he said.
The Chinese response to Mr. Trump’s speech accused the United States of succumbing to “outdated zero-sum thinking.”
“On the one hand, the U.S. government claims that it is attempting to build a great partnership with China,” the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement. “On the other hand, it labels China as a rival.”
“We call on the United States to abandon its outdated zero-sum thinking, and work together with China to seek common ground and engage in win-win cooperation,” the embassy said in its statement. “Therefore we can jointly build a global community with a shared future for mankind, featuring common prosperity and development.”
Those criticisms were echoed by Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Beijing. She said at a regular briefing on Tuesday that the two nations had common goals, and that they needed to be respectful of each others’ interests.
“It is futile for any country to distort the facts or to smear China,” Ms. Hua said. “We urge the U.S. side to stop distorting China’s strategic intentions and to abandon Cold War thinking and a zero-sum mind-set, otherwise it would only harm both sides.”
Mr. Trump has cultivated a warm relationship with China’s president, Xi Jinping, as he tries to enlist Beijing’s help to confront the nuclear ambitions of North Korea, China’s longtime ally. But that relationship has been tested by Mr. Trump’s efforts to reduce the trade imbalance with China, with the United States expected to impose tariffs on products like Chinese solar panels in the coming months.
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