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After Shanghai, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Michoustine is in Beijing on Wednesday May 24, where he is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart, Li Qiang, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The objective is to strengthen commercial relations to reach 200,000 million dollars of exchanges this year.
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With our correspondent in Beijing, Stéphane Lagarde
The Moscow media attach great importance to this visit, even going so far as to speak of a “meeting of the Russian government abroad”. Here, the Chinese media are more discreet for the moment. And you have to go to the website of Huanqiu Shibao – Global Times in its English version – to find a long report on the visit of the Russian delegation to Shanghai on Tuesday.
A special plane was chartered for the hundred delegates, and several Russian ministers were on the trip, including the minister in charge of energy, Alexander Novak, who announced a 40% increase in hydrocarbon and gas deliveries to China this year. .
This visit could speed up the construction of the Siberian Power 2 pipeline, which once completed should supply 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China via Mongolia. Knowing that China became Russia’s first customer in the energy sector last year, AFP points out.
Reaffirm the strength of the strategic partnership
Under Western sanctions linked to the Ukraine war, Russia wants to avoid seeing its gas exports plummet. The goal set by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping is to reach 200 billion dollars in trade by 2023, up from 190 billion last year, declared the head of the Russian government, Mikhail Michoustine. .
Behind this figure there are very specific things, such as the sale of Chinese mobile phones and cars in Russia, which has been boosted since the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army and the exit of Western competitors from the Russian market. Grain deliveries to China have also increased in Russia.
Chinese diplomacy repeats that it is only “normal economic and commercial cooperation”, but the visit is economic and political. Observers note, however, that the Shanghai Sino-Russian forum was held the day after the G7 meeting in Japan. And the meetings between Mikhail Mishustin and Chinese Premier Qin Gang as well as President Xi Jinping on Wednesday will certainly be an opportunity to reaffirm the strength of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership.
