New Delhi: In an op-ed for Chinese state-owned Xinhua News Agency published Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said closer business ties will be at the forefront of talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing for the Winter Olympics. He also spoke of a “mutually beneficial energy partnership” being formed between both countries.
The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics will be held Friday.
“…President Xi Jinping and I will thoroughly discuss key issues on the bilateral, regional, and global agendas… development of business ties will certainly be given special attention,” Putin wrote in the piece.
Russia and China are on course to achieve $200 billion in bilateral trade a year, he added, with 65 investment projects worth over $120 billion across sectors like mining, mineral processing, infrastructure and agriculture already in the pipeline.
The Russian President also noted that the two countries are creating mechanisms to “offset the negative impact of unilateral sanctions”.
The last time Putin visited China was to attend the second Belt and Road International Forum in April 2019.
‘Politicisation of sport’
In his op-ed, Putin also opposed “politicisation” of sporting events — a veiled reference to the US-led diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics over human rights concerns in China.
“Sadly, attempts by a number of countries to politicise sports for their selfish interests have recently intensified. This is fundamentally wrong and contrary to the very spirit and principles of the Olympic Charter,” wrote the Russian President.
He added that Russia and China have agreed to hold ‘Years of Sports Exchanges’ in 2022 and 2023, but did not give further details on this initiative.
‘Actively engaged in RIC, other multilateral networks’
Putin named the Russia-India-China (RIC) framework as one of the many multilateral frameworks under which Moscow and Beijing are “actively cooperating”, even though there has been no trilateral meeting between the heads of governments of the three countries since one in June 2019 in Japan’s Osaka, on the sidelines of a G-20 summit.
He also named the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as other key platforms of joint cooperation between China and Russia.
On issues of foreign policy coordination at the international level, Putin wrote: “We are working together to strengthen the central coordinating role of the United Nations in global affairs and to prevent the international legal system, with the UN Charter at its centre, from being eroded.”
Partnerships in energy, IT, medicine, space exploration
The Russian President said Russia and China are working towards a “mutually beneficial energy partnership”.
“The construction of four new power units at Chinese nuclear power plants with the participation of Rosatom State Corporation launched last year is one of them. All this significantly strengthens the energy security of China and the Asia region as a whole,” he wrote.
Apart from energy, there is also scope for cooperation in spheres of information and communication technologies, medicine, space exploration, including the use of national navigation systems and the International Lunar Research Station project, he added.
Putin also elaborated on Russia’s strategic objective to accelerate socio-economic development of Siberia and the Russian Far East.
“These territories are in the immediate neighbourhood of China,” he noted, adding that modernisation of the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway has begun.
“The port infrastructure in the Russian Far East is also growing,” he added.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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