MOSCOW-BRASILIA: MEETING OF TWO GLOBAL ECONOMIC LEADERS OF TOMORROW

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SANTIAGO DE CHILE - MOSCOW (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev) - The visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Brazil filled a gap in the relations of the four countries that have been called "global economic leaders of tomorrow" for over a year. Goldman Sachs granted this honorary title to China, India, Brazil and Russia in its annual report for 2003, and economists, political scientists and strategists speculating about the balance of forces in the next few decades took it up.

These four big countries have always had enormous potential, in particular, their immense natural and intellectual resources and large populations. But they only recently surprised the world with sustained economic growth, which can be seen as record for such big countries.

China is the indisputable leader of the quartet and will most probably surge ahead of the current world leader, the US, in terms of GDP. By that time, India, if the current trends persist, will catch up with America. But the future of Russia and Brazil is not so clear. Russia began to grow rapidly four to five years ago and Brazil joined the marathon later. So far, they are running behind China and India and stand side by side in the global scale. Brazil is the world's 15th largest economy in terms of GDP ($493 billion per year), and Russia stands one step lower ($450 billion).

Lovers of effective geopolitical schemes would immediately say that the four claimants to the top places in the world should rally their efforts in a bid to march on to leadership in tight ranks. But not all schemes survive the storms of reality.

Russia's cooperation with China and India is a fact of life, but China-India rapprochement is only in the making and it would be premature to speak about a conscious strategy of the "leaders of tomorrow" for a joint breakthrough into the future. At best, they are searching for areas where three of them could act in unison.

On the other hand, Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva created a Group of Three - Brazil, India and South Africa - in June 2003. During a visit to China in May 2004, the Brazilian leader suggested creating a Group of Five, the other two members being Russia and China.

All of Mr. da Silva's initiatives are concerned with common actions in the economy and trade and fairer trade conditions. The Brazilian president, with his classical mindset of a leader of an emerging country fighting neocolonial oppression, is advocating a lobby that would struggle against the trade protectionism of the old economic leaders, who are now on the defensive.

But Russia, India and China are rallied not by a desire to fight such countries as the US or Japan to destroy them but by a desire to integrate their economies, on favorable conditions, with those of the US, Japan, and other countries. This is a different game played by different rules. In this game, it is admissible and desirable to uphold one's view of global developments (it is almost the same in Moscow, Beijing and New Delhi) but absolutely unacceptable to try to weaken the "adversary." This is because a crisis in the US would slow down the progress of China and other countries, which are growing largely thanks to exports to America and Europe.

Beijing and Moscow have not yet responded to Brazil's initiative. They are trying to understand what it means, and a significant part of Mr. Putin's visit to Brazil was devoted to this issue. Let's see what the Five can do. Mr. Putin made the first gesture of goodwill when he said in an interview with Brazilian newspapers Folha de Sao Paulo and O Globo: "The assessment of international processes and our attitudes to the development of modern and democratic international relations with Brazil largely coincide."

Mr. Putin became the first-ever Russian leader to visit Latin America's largest country, Brazil. Bilateral trade is over $2 billion and is riddled with strange things, such as thepredominance of mineral fertilizers in Russian exports. But much can change because Russia and Brazil can develop relations in hi-tech spheres. Moscow sees its future not in oil exports, which predominant now, but in science-intensive spheres. It has been working for several years, suffering defeats but never giving up, to elevate science-intensive commodities to the forefront of relations with India and China.

Brazil is interested in Russia as a leader in space exploration, small nuclear power stations and other science-intensive spheres. Russia would like to secure joint use of the Alcantara space center, whose broad range of azimuths allows satellites to be launched into low-inclination orbits, in particular near polar orbits, without overflying densely populated areas. Brazilian rocket specialists could be trained in Russia, which has the world's best school of specialists of liquid rocket engines.

Moscow's experience of developing relations with Asia and Europe shows that technological spheres call for close and lasting attention by government structures, because it takes a great deal of time and money to build up comprehensive technological cooperation. But if the four countries want to become the "global economic leaders of tomorrow," they must know that only science-intensive industries can create the requisite foundation for this.

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