RUSSIA: A Step Closer to China

By Kester Kenn Klomegah Reprint | | Print |

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Mar 26 2007 (IPS) - Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Moscow Monday to sign a series of agreements aimed at boosting economic and political relations between the two giants.

China’s Railways Ministry and Russian Railways are expected to sign an agreement on broader cooperation in oil transportation. A memorandum on scientific and technical cooperation will be signed, and the China Development Bank and Russian banks will sign several agreements, Chinese foreign ministry sources indicated.

A new target has been set to increase trade to 60-80 billion dollars a year by 2010, and bring in 12 billion dollars Chinese investment into Russia. In 2005, the bilateral trade was about 29 billon dollars.

China is at the same time ready “to deepen political mutual trust and to continue offering mutual support in issues of key interests to our two countries,” Hu said in an interview with the heads of some Russian media groups ahead of his three-day visit.

Major tasks facing Russia and China involve “stepping up our countries’ strategic cooperation in international and regional affairs, and broadening their contribution to peace and general development,” he said.

Hu is also keen to develop an existing trilateral agreement between China, Russia and India. The three countries agreed last month that selective approaches to counterterrorist operations cannot yield reliable results.

“The trilateral cooperation between China, Russia and India is not directed against any third countries whatsoever. It will benefit the development of the three countries themselves as well as peace and development in the region and the rest of the world,” Hu said.

Hu’s visit marks the start of a new round of contacts. “The schedules of further Russian- Chinese contacts have been negotiated, and at least four summit meetings are planned for 2007,” the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper reported.

Last year President Vladmir Putin launched ‘the Year of Russia in China and the Year of China in Russia’ as a vehicle to promote the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership.

“Judging from history, the two countries have a lot in common that can be developed without any hindrance,” Tatyana Deich, researcher on Russian-Chinese policy at the Russian Academy of Sciences told IPS. “A programme of collaboration, especially in the fight against international terrorism, religious extremism and national separatism binds them together.”

The moves are being given an economic base. Russia plans to increase sale of oil and gas to China, and design an oil pipeline from east Siberia to the Pacific Ocean with an offshoot in China.

Oil is increasingly an important component in Russia’s policy for strategic economic cooperation, Deich said. “Development of Chinese-Russian energy collaboration relates to the basic common interest of both countries.”

Russsia could be shifting its focus from building relations with Western nations.

“Russia now concentrates more on regional interests, and is turning more attention to the development of the regions of Siberia and the Far East,” deputy director at the Institute of the Far East Studies, Andrew Ostrovskiy, told IPS.

The shift could be needed for the development of Russia itself. “Only then can Russia become an economically strong and politically influential power. A one-sided orientation towards Europe and the USA, the so-called Atlantic approach causes an imbalanced development of the European part of Russia to the detriment of its Asian part.”

“Russia is emerging as a transcontinental bridge between Europe and Asia, Ostrovskiy said. That position could also make Russia a transportation hub, he said.

“This is one of the key advantages of Russia. Therefore it is necessary to develop the transport network of the country – conduits, railroads and highways and air routes from the west to the east and to create state projects and to achieve investments in them. If this is done for the next 10-15 years, then the world passenger flow will go around Russia.”

Further development of Russian-Chinese economic ties will strengthen both the Chinese economy and the Russian position, he said.