Russian Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev began a 3-day visit to China on October 22 at the invitation of Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, aiming to strengthen bilateral cooperation and reflecting geo-political changes in the region and each side’s strategic calculations.

  

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the visit’s highlight will be the 18thsummit between the two Prime Ministers in Beijing. Topics for discussion will include bilateral trade and cooperation in economics, education, agricultural production, energy, and defense.

 Efforts to improve bilateral ties

 Relations between Moscow and Beijing have been consolidated through frequent leadership visits. President Vladimir Putin chose China for his first foreign trip after his reelection, while Russia was Xi Jinping’s first overseas destination after he was elected President.

 At last month’s APEC Summit in Bali, Indonesia, the two lavished praises on the development of bilateral ties. While President Putin described Russia’s relations with China as “unprecedented”, the purpose of the Chinese President’s Russia visit was to develop a strategic partnership with Russia. The two countries agreed to observe 2013 as China’s Tourism Year and to focus on youth exchanges over the next two years.

 Economic and trade cooperation remains one of the top priorities in Russia-China relations with last year’s two-way trade volume reaching US$88 billion. Remarkable progress has been made in oil and gas, particularly with a US$260 billion deal signed between Russian oil giant Rosneft and China’s National Petroleum Corporation during President Xi’s visit. Under the agreement, the volume of oil Moscow supplies to Beijing will double.

 Russia and China signed a strategic arms sales agreement in March, under which Moscow will sell China 24 Su 35 fighter jets and 4 Lada-class submarines. The two countries have recently conducted their joint naval and land military exercises.

 Set aside differences, move closer to one another

 Observers say, however, that differences and reservations still remain in Russia-China relations. Although Russia has agreed to sell modern weapons to China, it remains worried that Beijing will copy its technology to produce its own weapons and sell them to the world.

 This worry is realistic since China, once the world’s second biggest arms importer became one of the world’s top five arms exporters in 2012, although its market share was only 5%, compared to Russia’s 26%. Therefore, in its arms sales agreement with China, Russia said it would transfer finished weapons to China but there would not be any licensing of domestic assembly. Despite their common stance on a number of global issues, Moscow is seeking ways to temper China’s grand ambition to become a superpower.

Both Russia and China have territorial disputes with Japan but their interests are different. China wants Russia to support its claim of sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea while Russia, already in control of the Kuril islands, is trying to improve its relations with Japan.

According to analysts, Russia and China are setting aside their differences because of geo-political changes in the region, including Washington’s shift of focus to the Asia-Pacific region. Medvedev’s visit to China will certainly help to re-balance the economic-defense axis between China, Russia, and the US. 

VOV5/VOV online