President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China produced a clutch of new deals on Thursday, but failed to secure funding for vital infrastructure projects, underscoring the limits to a relationship Moscow casts as a counterweight to the West.
In November, China and Russian Federation signed a 30-year contract for gas supplies to China through a western route, which followed a $400 billion deal that will deliver 38 billion cubic meters of gas to China annually through an eastern route, starting in 2018. The two deals will make China the biggest consumer of Russian gas when delivery starts. However, that celebration is also plagued by economic woes that continue to batter both countries.
“I would not agree that the illegitimate restrictions imposed by certain Western countries against Russia have a negative impact on Russian-Chinese economic cooperation”, he said. Russia has said it will shadow multinational naval exercises involving the United States and Ukraine in the next couple weeks in the Black Sea, which follows dozens of Russian bomber flights in the a year ago over Europe and near US airspace. China’s $50.9 billion of exports to Russian Federation weren’t enough to put that market in its top 10.
As a result, trade between Russia-currently in a recession-and China actually declined by almost 30 percent in the first half of this year. From Beijing, Putin heads to an economic forum in Vladivostok aimed at raising Russia’s economic profile in the region.
He said moves by some countries to “exonerate war criminals” were “an outrageous flouting” of the postwar Nuremburg and Tokyo tribunals to prosecute them.
China and Russian Federation will sign a series of agreements for “pragmatic cooperation”‘ in the areas including infrastructure, energy and investment, China’s Foreign Ministry said in a faxed response to questions.
Gazprom said late Monday in a regulatory filing that it obtained a five-year, $1.5 billion loan from a consortium of banks headed by China Construction Bank Corp. However, this does not appear to stop Russian Federation from leaning towards China in an attempt to curtail USA and Europe’s dominance, according to Bloomberg.
Putin’s trip to Beijing is a reciprocal visit following Xi Jinping attendance at Russia’s V-Day Parade in Moscow on May 9th.
One of the key bilateral agreements is a memorandum on natural gas supplies from Russia’s Far East to China, through the pipeline known as the Power of Siberia. “In particular, Russian hopes of attracting lots of investment from China in a fairly short period of time are not going anywhere”. They include a Chinese commitment to help finance a Moscow-Kazan high speed rail link in time for the Russia-hosted 2018 soccer World Cup.