Russia’s colossal economic shift toward Asia in energy, finance, and infrastructure deepened at this year’s APEC summit in Beijing with 17 major bi-lateral business deals with China. The strategic alliance could crowd out other global players.
The deals signed by the world’s second and eighth largest economies reflect a ‘synergy’, as natural resource rich Russia has a lot to offer a country with one of the world’s fastest growing populations and economies, Martin Jacques, columnist and author of When China Rules the World, told RT.
“Russia is very rich in natural resources and China is very poor so there is a natural synergy in their economic relationship. Russia has something to offer China which China needs,” he said.
Both Russia and China are also uncomfortable with the current US-dominated world order, although not in quite the same way, says Jacques.
“Russia’s interests, needs, and status is not respected and I think that is essentially the problem. China acknowledges the importance of the international order, definitely wants to be part of it, but at the same time it doesn’t feel it has got the same stake in that system as for example the US,” he said.
The headline stealing accord was, of course, the deal between Russia’s Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corp. When completed the western pipeline will deliver up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas in addition to the 38 billion annually agreed in May.
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No schedule was set for territorial dispute talks between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said it was unclear when such a widely anticipated meeting would take place. Last week tension ran high as China entered the airspace and naval zone of disputed islands. The Voice of Russia asked to comment this dispute to Martin Jaques, author of the best-seller “When China Rules the World” and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The Senkaku Islands have been controlled by Japan since 1895, aside from a 1945 to 1972 period of administration by the United States. The People’s Republic of China and Taiwan disputed the US handover of authority back to Japan in 1971. And both countries have defended its claims to the territory since then.
Japan argues that it found the Islands to be the land belonging to no one back in 19th century.
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China wants the UK to apologise for a meeting between Prime Minister David Cameron and the Dalai Lama last year. Business leaders say the freeze in relations between the countries in the wake of the meeting could cost the UK billions of pounds of Chinese investment. VoR’s Tom Spender reports.
China expects “concrete measures” from the UK to repair its relations with China.
That’s what a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told reporters in Beijing today – although she did not specify what those measures should be.
The Chinese leadership is angry with Prime Minister David Cameron over his meeting with the Dalai Lama in London a year ago.
Shi Yinhong is Professor of International Relations at Renmin University in Beijing.
“He could emphasise that Britain recognises China’s sovereignty and administrative control over Tibet and will not receive the Dalai Lama again, but of course maybe he doesn’t want to say this because it would cause a domestic political problem in Britain.”
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