Russia looks east in push to catch up with rampant China

[ChinaToday]

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia: Jealousy is a very Russian trait, and the green eyes of Russia are fixed firmly on the runaway economic success of its neighbour, China.

''China is indeed becoming a global economic and political hub,'' the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said as he prepared to host leaders from across the region in the port city of Vladivostok.

''China has taken up this new leading role not only in Russia's eyes, but also in the eyes of the whole world,'' Mr Putin said.

The 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum summit begins today and is billed as a sign Moscow is looking east across the vast Siberian tundra to the thousands of kilometres of coast it owns along the Pacific. But the region is already crowded with superpowers, with China's economy more than double the size of Russia's and the US promising a Pacific ''pivot''.

''The [Russian] far east has always been provincial, since it is an area little explored and not suitable for large settlements,'' wrote Viktor Larin, an authority on Russia's Pacific region, based in Vladivostok.

The contrast with China is striking. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia experimented with aggressive privatisation and a kind of corporate democracy, while China retained the heavy hand of authoritarian control.

Russia's economy fell into chaos and came perilously close to collapse, while China has gone from strength to strength.

Russians resent the decline of their international standing and are quick to blame the West.

Russia does still have the trappings of a great power, with a million-strong army and more nuclear weapons than any other nation. Mr Putin has presided over an estimated 80 per cent increase in military spending over the past decade, often speaking of rebuilding Russia's prestige.

The turn east to the Pacific offers Moscow a chance to invest closer to the growth centres of the world, and Mr Putin has taken a strong personal interest in developing the region around Vladivostok.

While Russian rulers have historically looked to Europe and across the Atlantic to the US, the east has been seen as a place of resources to exploit and return to the centre.

The population of the region was in steady decline, having lost more than 300,000 people of working age in 15 years, Professor Larin said.

But with oil and gas exports now the mainstay of Russia's economy, and with growing Chinese demand, geography may be more favourable to the Russian Pacific.


Read more: Russia looks east in push to catch up with rampant China

 

[ChinaToday]

Hu and Putin Get Warm and Fuzzy in Russian Far East

The key meeting of one of the world’s most important trade organizations is turning into a Russo-Chinese love fest.

With reports of the Russians planning to spurn the U.S., smoldering tension between China and Japan over territorial disputes, and a protracted debate about environmental tariffs, the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum being held in the Russian port city of Vladivostok has had its share of Siberian chilliness.

But all that has just been ice on the Champagne for the Chinese and Russians, who, by their own accounts, are having a grand old time discussing trade liberalization and the potential for economic cooperation in Russia’s sparsely populated Far East – a region Moscow is seeking to outfit with new infrastructure and build out as a trade and technology hub.

Cagey about revealing details of China President Hu Jintao’s meeting plans at the summit at a Friday afternoon press briefing, China’s officials were nonetheless willing to disclose that Mr. Hu and Mr. Putin would have “broad and in depth exchanges,” and that Russia’s emphasis on developing its Far East, which shares a more than 4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) border with China, would offer great opportunities to China.

Although the Chinese officials were more open about their discussions with the Russians than they were about anyone else, Mr. Putin’s speech later Friday night made the Chinese look positively coy.

At the speech, Mr. Putin called Mr. Hu, known for his studied refusal to reveal any personality, “a great friend of our country and a personal friend.”

“We discussed in great detail, and by the way that’s very characteristic of Chinese leadership, they like detail…we discussed what has been done and can be done,” he continued, before rattling off a range of potential areas of cooperation including nuclear energy, gas and oil production, auto production and even textile factories.

For his praise, Mr. Putin was rewarded with a slew of questions from Chinese delegates during the question and answer session that followed the speech. At one point the Chinese affection became so obvious, Mr. Putin suggested to the women choosing questioners, “the lady in red not from China, she’d like to ask a question.”

But that was all simply foreplay for the real climax of the night, when one Chinese businessman told Mr. Putin he would like to see more cooperation between Mr. Putin, known for his love of sambo and judo, and the martial artists of China, adding, “Our martial artists have delivered their regards to you.”

Mr. Putin responded by urging his “Japanese friends,” among others, to recognize that the “source of all martial arts are in Chinese sports,” to the delight of the businessman.

The comment is an unambiguous blow to the Japanese and other Asian countries, whose overlapping claims to shared culture run as deep as the coastal shelf they fight over in the East and South China Seas. Whether they plan to roll with the punch remains to be seen, though with China and Russia tag-teaming in the opposite corner, they may not have much of a choice.

Hu and Putin Get Warm and Fuzzy in Russian Far East - China Real Time Report - WSJ

 

[ChinaToday]

Russia, China strike accord at APEC meetings

President Vladimir Putin has met with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in Vladivostok. The meeting, which took place on Friday, has become the second between the Russian and Chinese heads of state in the past three months.

Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao, who met behind closed doors, focused on bilateral relations and discussed the international agenda. Experts say the two leaders could have hammered out a position on Syria, particularly since the crisis in Syria will top the agenda of the forthcoming meeting between Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Vladivostok.

Hu Jintao might have briefed President Putin on the outcome of Chinese-American consultations which took place in Beijing a few weeks ago. As relations between China and the US have strained over the Pentagon’s plans to create an Asian segment of the global missile defense system, experts do not rule out that Russia and China could work out a joint response to the US moves.

Moscow and Beijing may also exchange opinion on the situation in the Korean Peninsula and North East Asia in general following their efforts to get North Korea to join the six-party talks on its nuclear program.

Exchanges between Russia and China become particularly relevant given that shortly before Putin’s meeting with Hu Jintao it became clear that Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda wouldn’t meet with either President Hu or President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea. The decision was prompted by a territorial dispute over a number of islands and areas in the East China Sea and in the Sea of Japan.

As he greeted his Chinese counterpart, President Putin spoke highly of Russia’s friendly and trustful relations with China.

"The Russian-Chinese relations have hit a fairly high level. To a larger extent, this is the result of friendship promotion efforts on the part of the Chinese president. The Chinese leadership and the Chinese people alike are set on developing bilateral ties with Russia."

In his turn, Hu Jintao praised Russia’s skills in organizing the APEC summit and referred to Vladimir Putin as a “friend”. The Chinese leader was impressed by the changed look of Russky Island, where the APEC Summit Week is being held.

"All this attests to the importance of the APEC summit for Russia and Russia’s huge potential for development. Undoubtedly, the summit will be successful, due to Russia’s current presidency in it and our joint efforts."

A large group of Chinese entrepreneurs has arrived in Vladivostok. Chinese businessmen are interested in projects that Russia has offered its APEC partners for the period of its APEC presidency. The projects in question envisage an improvement of Russian transport infrastructure and investments in the farming sector for addressing food security in Asia.

Russia, China strike accord at APEC meetings: Voice of Russia

 

[somebozo]

If Russia can give up its cold war mentality and nostalgia of defeat and can join hands with china to gurantee regional security it can go a long way to success. Mending ties with CAR's and Pakistan would be the first step.

 

[ahfatzia]

Russia's far east - a bridge to Asia, or to nowhere?

Russia has pumped $21 billion into its eastern seaboard to attract investors, tourists and gamblers from Asia, and persuade locals to halt the drift away from a city that, for all the grand designs, remains largely isolated from the rest of the world's largest country.

But in Vladivostok, a city of 600,000 where the clocks run seven hours ahead of Moscow, the injection of capital has done little to lift the low regard in which many locals hold the leader who has dominated Russia since 2000. Although the city has received a makeover, with a new airport, bridges and highway intersections, residents say inflated contracts were won by insiders and the money would have been better spent on social services and housing.

"I don't associate it with Putin. They took ages to get round to building the bridge," said 28-year-old biologist Yevgeny Skorkin, joining thousands of people on a mass stroll last month over the new bridge across the Zolotoi Rog (Golden Horn) inlet that opens up a vista across the city's port and the ships of Russia's Pacific Fleet in the harbor.

The centre of Vladivostok is quiet of an evening, but is at least well lit - in contrast to the murk of the 1990s when the city was plagued by power cuts. Laser cannons mounted atop the bridge pylons play against the night sky. But the foreign eateries and cafes that *** cities in Russia's European heartland, like McDonalds and Starbucks, are nowhere to be seen.

Five years after Putin's volley of promises, the young, educated people of Vladivostok are still leaving, while the city can boast another trophy of regional development - a second bridge built at a cost of $1 billion.

"You start to think, how much did they spend on this bridge and who, at the end of the day, needs it?" said Samsonov, a 37-year-old opposition activist. "There is no relationship between the costs and the benefits."

"Well, this is it. The bridge is built. The summit will end. And we feel the economic crisis breathing hard down our necks," said the tanned anti-corrosion specialist, "All the money goes back to Moscow, and then gets pumped out to London," he said. "They steal everything and then hit us over the head with coshes ... This is a police state."

With the Soviet collapse of 1991 a fading memory, fears that a rising China might colonize and eventually annex the east are scoffed at by local experts - even if Moscow occasionally plays up the perceived threat to Russia's territorial integrity.

There are fewer Chinese here than there were 10 years ago," replied sinologist Viktor Larin, adding that low-paid jobs were now being taken by migrant laborers from former-Soviet Central Asia and nearby North Korea. The Chinatowns of Russia's far east had all but disappeared, he said, as migrants were lured home by economic growth rates more than twice as high as Russia's.

The contrast on each side of the border is stark, the Chinese territories booming and drawing in ever more workers while the Russian Far East struggles with the drift westwards.

"They don't need to settle here, it's cheaper to buy them than to fight for them," said Larin. "Fears China might occupy swathes of Russia's eastern territory were, a "collective, subconscious myth".

"Vladivostok was founded as a window to the Asian world. Then there was revolution, civil war, Soviet rule. When I became governor my chief task was to open up the city. It was the second attempt - and it didn't work out," said Kuznetsov, now a tutor at the Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island. "Now, we have a third chance - the APEC forum."

Russia's far east - a bridge to Asia, or to nowhere? | Reuters

 

[somebozo]

Russia is in a critical situation it has no allies in the Muslim world and some if its last standing friends are being toppled one by one. Meantime China has been able to do strides with Pakistani help in the Muslim world and Middle East. It is time for Russia to give up ego and think rationally. Even its closet ally India is now romancing Europe and USA. Otherwise, Russia will remain declining and eventually become a part of history as "once upon a time"..

 

[Contrarian]

Russia is in a critical situation it has no allies in the Muslim world and some if its last standing friends are being toppled one by one. Meantime China has been able to do strides with Pakistani help in the Muslim world and Middle East. It is time for Russia to give up ego and think rationally. Even its closet ally India is now romancing Europe and USA. Otherwise, Russia will remain declining and eventually become a part of history as "once upon a time"..

ROFL. You really over estimate Pakistan. China is fully capable to engage with any country in the world and make friends. It doesnt need Pakistan's help to do so! This is not the 70's

Neither is Pakistan looked very favourably by many Muslim countries in the first place that it may be in a position to oblige others!

 

[zzzz]

Russia is in a critical situation it has no allies in the Muslim world and some if its last standing friends are being toppled one by one. Meantime China has been able to do strides with Pakistani help in the Muslim world and Middle East. It is time for Russia to give up ego and think rationally. Even its closet ally India is now romancing Europe and USA. Otherwise, Russia will remain declining and eventually become a part of history as "once upon a time"..

Russia is the member of CSTO among the other 5 countries. The only military defense alliance that exist in the world after NATO. Some knowledge for you.

 

[rockstarIN]

ROFL. You really over estimate Pakistan. China is fully capable to engage with any country in the world and make friends. It doesnt need Pakistan's help to do so! This is not the 70's

Neither is Pakistan looked very favourably by many Muslim countries in the first place that it may be in a position to oblige others!

Exactly, Pakistan is not in the radar in this game at all. Pakistan is required by USA only now for Afganistan & WOT. Once it is over, they will be again abandoned.

 

[Srinivas]

Russia is in a critical situation it has no allies in the Muslim world and some if its last standing friends are being toppled one by one. Meantime China has been able to do strides with Pakistani help in the Muslim world and Middle East. It is time for Russia to give up ego and think rationally. Even its closet ally India is now romancing Europe and USA. Otherwise, Russia will remain declining and eventually become a part of history as "once upon a time"..

Why would Russia need an ally in Muslim world?
Islamic terror is one of the worst problem Russia facing.