The Russian Federation’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is currently visiting Beijing and signing contracts with Chinese companies. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov told Reuters last Friday that the two countries will make deals worth $5.5 billion in thirty-eight areas, including the financial industry, telecommunications, mineral extraction, natural gas, nuclear energy, oil refinement, electric power, transportation and infrastructure. Some highlights of the deals are:
- "Sistema will sign a $200 million funding deal with the Bank of China and telecoms equipment maker ZTE Corp." (Reuters)
- "China National Materials (Sinoma) and investment holding company CNBM will sign four cement production facilities construction deals with Russian cement maker Eurocement." (Reuters)
- Establishing a mechanism between the two countries on mutual acknowledgment of Ballistic Missile launching.
- A joint petroleum refinery plant in Tianjing which has 15-million-tons-per-year production capability. A petroleum pipeline between the two country had already been finished in May this year.
- It also includes a memorandum of China helping Russia building its high speed railway systems. The railway between Vladivostock and Khabarovsk will probably use Chinese technologies. Experts say China’s technical advantages in High Speed Trail over Japan and France are 1) China provides a comprehensive engineering solution from infrastructure construction (工务工程?), railway communication system, power grid laying to train construction while no other country can provide. 2) China’s railway engineers have better technological experiences on upgrading old railway systems 3) Chinese construction companies are able to build systems on a tight budget, usually about 20% lower than some other countries. The railway between the two cities will cost from billions to tens of billions USD.
Prime Minister Putin will also attend the Eighth Ministers’ Meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
English media coverage can be found on Google News. Sina.com also has a good coverage of the event in Chinese and following are selected comments out of about 1000:
"I love my family" from Zibo, Shandong:
[Putin is an] old friend. Hope the two countries will have more cooperation, mutual support and co-development.
华哥 from Chengqing:
We should keep a friendly relation with Russia for generations. I kind of like Russian people’s character. Wish the two countries can be good neighbors.
Anonymous mobile user:
Cooperation with Russia makes China’s backyard safe and will give China more room to claim its interests in the Middle East. That’s quite different from our trade with the United States.
Anonymous mobile user:
Hope the contracts will be truly realized, political mutual trust enhanced, cooperation promoted in areas like foreign affairs, military cooperation, economics, labours, energy, culture, technology and anti-terrorism. The final goal should be a win-win and revival of both. China and Russia jia you!
Anonymous mobile:
I want to ask Prime Minister Putin when you guys will sell Tupolev Tu-160 heavy bombers to us.
Mobile user from Sichuan:
In China, there are much more American things than Russian. [The commenter means America still influences China more than Russia does]
Mobile user from Shandong:
There’s no eternal friends but forever interests.
Nano 10 from Handan, Hebei:
It’s quite reasonable that Russia doesn’t want to sell China its top weapons since the two share a border. However, we can’t deny that China couldn’t achieve today’s modernization in military technologies without Russia’s help.
Anonymous mobile user:
I’m very interested in Russian songs. Hope my generation can be familiar with Russian music as much as the 50s generation were.
Mobile user from Shandong:
Pupu [Putin's Chinese nickname given by a female?] is so smoking hot.
Mobile user from Guangdong:
Investing in Russia is better than buying trashy American debt.
Anonymous mobile user:
Another money borrower is coming to China? Did he forget how Russia treated Chinese businessmen earlier this year?
Woexin from Beijing:
Nice. In the 50s, Big Brother taught us how to make the A-bomb and today we teach Big Brother how to make high speed railways. [Many people in the older generations still have a favorable memory of the Soviet Union's help with China's rapid industrialization in the 50s, despite ugly things that happened in the 60s and 70s between the two countries. Many can still be moved to tears when they listen to a Soviet song. In many Chinese people's opinion, gratitude is always gratitude and this applies to any country that helped China before.]
Lumanman from Jiangsu:
[Sorry. My translation to this one is quite poor since there are a lot Chinese idioms in it.] Sun tzu said: "He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain." Any tactics must be based on real situation. Well said. The two Superpowers’ ruling the world was already a part of history. On the surface, America is the only remaining superpower and everyone has to painfully submit to it, but actually its glory will reach its end soon since it has already established so many enemies in the world. American strategists know it better than anyone else. So they are making a common target to shield themselves and that scapegoat is China. Advocating G2 is one such trick.
So based on today’s situation, what strategy should our China take? In the chaotic time of Warring States Period (476 BCE to 221 BCE), two of the most remarkable strategists were created, "Hezong Hezong" [making alliance with weak ones when you are weak] and "Yuanjiao Jingong" [making alliance as many as possible with whom doesn't have conflicts of interest with you]. Look at today’s China. Is it weak or is it strong? Though our total economic volume is among top three but our GDP per capita is one of the poorest, let alone our natural resources are extremely limited. Knowing where we are in the rank, we then can choose the best strategy and that strategy is "Hezong". We must make as many friends as possible in the world. Cooperating with Russia is the smartest choice. This strategy should not be altered as long as America still acts like a bully superpower.
My comment moderation rules:
I hate to see the comment area of my post degenerates quickly into a trash can so I will delete following types of comments under my posts from now on:
- all “sofa” comments without content
- personal insult comments
- troll
- all comments under type 1-3 will probably be deleted too so don’t feed troll, use your thumb down
And I will not accept any complaint on my moderation rules. However, insightful and informational suggestions are always welcome.
Thanks for your cooperation,
Python
No comments:
Post a Comment