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Putin wins big in first year
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Li Li\
ONE year has passed since Boris Yeltsin tapped Vladimir Putin as Russia's acting president at the end of 1999. As a 48-year-old reformer ruling the largest nation on earth, Putin has proven to be a “hard”, “flexible” and “down to earth” politician able to meet the enormous challenges facing Russia, fully capable of stabilizing its government and leading it to prosperity.
When he was elected president last March with 53 per cent of the votes, Putin promised to transform Russia into a “rich, strong and civilized country” and bring a change to his country where corruption and chaos had long prevailed.
Putin is now confirmed in power, and in control of the country. He was somber enough to realize the importance of forming a stable government while embracing a healthy, cooperative relationship with the Duma, the lower house of parliament. He recruited some genuine and well-educated reformers to his administration and accommodated the Duma's rival blocs to co-operate with each other and the Kremlin.
Putin acknowledged that Russia has fallen far behind the curve of global economic development and would require radical steps to put it back on track. Russia's economy has shrunk almost every year since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Output has fallen by about 53 per cent in ten years.
Putin promised to crank up growth on the order of eight to ten per cent annually within a few years. The economy picked up in 2000: growth was a record 3.2 per cent; foreign-currency reserves grew by around US$1billion a month; inflation was under control; more taxes were collected; the rouble was stable; and public finance was remarkably healthy.
Macro-economic stability provided an essential precondition for the improvement of administration. Intending to concentrate state power, Putin successfully tackled the two greatest obstacles to change — regional governors and the “oligarchs”, a small number of business titans controlling enormous pools of capital and meddling in politics. These two groups had often been much more powerful than the federal government.
With a grim and stern stance towards the “oligarchs”, Putin has repeatedly said they would be treated like everyone else and “distanced from power”. Furthermore, Putin has started to name his own presidential representatives to the regions, replacing some regional leaders who have fallen under the sway of governors.
The Chechnya campaign, Moscow's second in six years against the region's rebels, was rated as a successful venture for Putin since his election in March. While exploring political solutions, Putin is adamant in striving to subjugate Chechnya by military force. Putin forcefully defended Russia's war in Chechnya and won support from the vast majority of the population.
Realizing the setback in post-Soviet diplomacy, Putin carried out a series of diplomatic efforts with a view to establishing a flexible and well-balanced diplomatic policy.
He accomplished several diplomatic breakthroughs, thawing previously icy relationships with some adversaries. He has played host to Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and sent a warm diplomatic note to Libya's Gadhafi. He became the first Kremlin leader to visit North Korea and his journey to Cuba was the first by a top Russian leader since 1989.
Most importantly, Japan and Russia signed more than 10 documents during his official visit to Tokyo in early September to boost cooperation in various areas and maintain the momentum toward strengthened bilateral ties.
As for the relationship with the US, the most important for Russia, Putin displayed neither Soviet-style hostility nor a warm embrace. He repeatedly expressed his strong opposition to the Nato's enlargement, but said that Russia would create a good cooperative working relationship with Nato.
While calling for further arms control and reduction in strategic nuclear warheads to 1,500 by 2008, Putin criticized strongly the US plans for a national missile defense (NMD) system as a blatant breach of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, telling Cliton NMD amounted to a cure worse than the disease it was designed to treat. Putin flatly rejected Clinton's proposal to amend the ABM Treaty and threatened to respond by building its own anti-missile system or deploying sufficient numbers of new offensive weapons to overwhelm the US missile shield.
However, Putin has still a long way to go: corruption remains blatant, crime endemic, and the rich and powerful are still above the law. Putin's agenda will include a serious war on corruption, a radical slashing of government bureaucracy, and comprehensive tax reform. The new century means still more challenges for him.
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