Over 30 agreements have been signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s whirlwind visit to Beijing, China’s state run Xinhua news agency reported.
Advertisement
Should Putin reiterate the importance of non-interference in bilateral matters during his visit to China, which he is likely to do, it will serve as a much-needed move to back a nonaligned partner in safeguarding its core legal interests. We have been engaged in very close contacts these years. In 1996 they upgraded their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination and in 2001, they signed the Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.
Although Russia and China cannot always reach consensus on hard issues quickly, they can make them – however hard they are – serve the common objective of promoting bilateral cooperation, so they are always able to find solutions, added the Russian president.
The Kremlin is hopeful that the UK’s decision to leave the European Union will mean better relations between London and Moscow, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced Friday.
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s remark that Putin “might be happy” with Brexit was an improper attempt to put pressure on the United Kingdom public opinion, the Russian president said.
He called for more cooperation in trade, high technology, security, media, sports and people-to-people exchanges. They also discussed furthering cooperation in the space sector.
The countries’ central banks also signed a memorandum of understanding on setting up a yuan clearing mechanism in Russian Federation that they said would be beneficial to cross-border trade and investment.
Difficulties in the global economy “had an impact on our collaboration, leading to a certain drop in the total trade”, and “we are convinced it is a temporary phenomenon”, Putin told China’s Xinhua news service in an interview published Thursday. Speaking to the lower house of the Russian parliament Wednesday, he added that Russia was “ready for dialogue”, but had not seen any “positive response, like it was on the eve of the World War Two”. We are advancing a project to build a refinery in Tianjin.
The Russian president’s comments come in reply to UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s claims that “Putin would be happy if the UK left the European Union”.
He also noted the Yamal liquefied natural gas (LNG) project deal led by gas producer Novatek with Chinese banks worth over $12 billion, which was concluded in April.
In the first phase of cooperation, the two sides can set up a free trade area, Putin proposed, stressing that with more and more countries in the region interested in joining the ranks, the bloc needs to be open and inclusive.
“Peaceful atomic cooperation is growing stronger”.
He also vowed to expand the scope of energy cooperation in areas such as oil and gas, nuclera energy, coal and electricity, promote mutual investment and big-project cooperation, and conduct financial cooperation in currency swap, payment system, and within multilateral framework.
On Saturday, June 25, Putin is expected to have major talks with the Chinese leaders on a broad spectrum of bilateral and worldwide issues.
Advertisement
The President of China has invited the Russian President to take part in the G20 meeting, which will take place in China in early September.
