Putin visits China to open the Year of Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin is now in China for a two day visit. The official purpose of his visit is the official opening of the Year of Russia in Chin, a year-long festival promoting cultural links between the two countries. The event suggested by China was agreed upon 2004. The Chinese have planned over 260 events for the year-long festival. More than a thousand Russian guests will be at the ceremony.
The festival will develop cultural ties between Russia and China. First Deputy Prime Minster Dmitry Medvedev was head of the organizing committee which planned the events. A new Russian information centre will be opened in Peking today. An official ceremony will take place in the evening to mark the opening of the Year of Russia in China and amongst the guest will be Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Today Vladimir Putin will hold talks with the Chinese president. The main focus of the talks will be ob building political, trade and economic ties. Russians have seen that China’s influence on world affairs is greatly increasing. China has a marked role in the energy Markey, and the metal and chemical industries. Russia and China are today competing against one another in ventures in Venezuela, Colombia and Kazakhstan.
Russia keeps China energy options open
Russia and China are engaged in a complicated dance over energy - complicated enough to baffle many observers.
At the head of a Russian delegation to Beijing, President Vladimir Putin has signed a number of energy deals which - had the signatories been different - might have changed the shape of the global oil and gas market.
Moscow promised - among other deals - to build two gas pipelines from Eastern and Western Siberia to China, and to join forces with Chinese state energy company CNPC in developing gas offshore of Sakhalin, an island east of the Russia's mainland.
Energy-hungry China is obviously interested in Russia's vast oil and gas reserves.
But despite several high-profile promises, 'Moscow has dragged its feet implementing joint projects such as a planned eastern oil pipeline', says Alice Lagnado of Argus Media, an energy publisher.
Multiple customers
In a world where the stakes for energy supplies are sky-high, China is not the only game in town. Although Russia's oil and gas reserves are huge, they are not bottomless.
And there are other buyers - notably Japan and Europe.
Till now, Japan has been Russia's main energy partner in the east. Tokyo has promised to invest several billions of dollars in Russia's dilapidated Far East, if Russia will build its far eastern oil pipeline to the port of Nakhodka - closer to Japan than to China.
Despite Mr Putin's backing, the pipeline's construction has been delayed, partly due to environmental concerns.
So Russia still has not made it clear who will be the beneficiary of its oil: China, Japan, or both.
Read more at BBC News
Japan delays China loans decision
Japan is to delay a decision on paying further yen loans to China because of the two countries' worsening relations.
Chief government spokesman Shinzo Abe said Japan would not give any more loans during the current fiscal year.
Ties between China and Japan have deteriorated due to rows over energy reserves and World War II history.
Japan's aid to China is no longer significant financially but delaying further payments will be viewed as highly symbolic, a BBC reporter says.
Mr Abe said the decision did not mean the government was cutting off or freezing aid to China but Tokyo needed more time to work on what it called the "various situations" in Sino-Japanese affairs.
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All this posturing makes it difficult for the two countries to make progress on other disputes, like their overlapping claims to territory and oil and gas reserves in the East China Sea, he says.
The two sides have failed to reach agreement on the East China Sea issue despite a fourth round of talks earlier this month.
Meanwhile on Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted that a pipeline carrying Russian oil could be built through China, a likely disappointment to Tokyo, which has been lobbying for greater access to Russia's energy supplies.
Both Japan and China also compete for attention in Washington. The United States, which remains the major military power in Asia, is a long-standing ally of Japan and has an ambivalent attitude towards China - eager both to encourage and contain it. Story from BBC NEWS: