I was delighted to have been given the opportunity yesterday on Press TV (Iran) to explain why the notion that Russia is the junior partner in its relationship with the PRC is patently false whatever Washington and mainstream Western media may say.
Follow the link: Russia's energy exports to China will rise 40% this year amid sanctions: Deputy PM
|
The subject arose in connection with yesterday’s participation of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in the ongoing high level talks between a very large Russian business delegation and their Chinese counterparts in the city of Shanghai. At Mishustin’s side was his deputy PM Alexander Novak to lead the talks on cooperation in energy. Indeed, hydrocarbon exports, one of Novak’s key portfolios, were the lead story, with a year on year rise of more than 40% projected in 2023. But there were representatives of all imaginable economic sectors, including agriculture and food processing, which is another fast growing vector in bilateral relations. And, as the Russian state television featured last night, there is also growing cooperation in the very important automobile sector. This includes not just vastly increased import of Chinese vehicles but also industrial cooperation: the Chinese have just entered into a joint project with the recently vacated Nissan factory in Petersburg for assembly of a new Chinese designed car there.
Following his visit to Shanghai, Mishustin and his government colleagues proceeded to Beijing, where they are expected for state to state talks including time with President Xi Jinping.
By curious coincidence, this morning’s Mezzo music channel enlivened my breakfast with scenes from John Adams’ opera Nixon in China in a splendid production by the Opera of Paris. This was a forceful reminder that what we are now witnessing in the Russian-Chinese relationship is as epochal as what Nixon and Kissinger wrought in the 1970s together with Mao and Chou En Lai. Indeed, the material is there before us for some new opera based on the state actors we see on television daily: Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Mishustin on one side; Xi Jinping and Defense Minister Li Shangfu on the other.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023