#9 - JRL 6585
China, Russia strategic partnership maturing: analysts
AFP
December 3, 2002

China and Russia's joint stance on the Iraqi and North Korean weapons crises may carry limited diplomatic bite, but it does show a maturing strategic partnership between the two countries, analysts said Tuesday.

In a joint declaration Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin warned North Korea against developing nuclear weapons and called for a resumption of US-North Korea dialogue.

The two countries also fired a shot across the bows of the United States on Iraq, calling for the arms crisis to be solved through "political and diplomatic means" even as Washington was again holding out the threat of military action.

"This shows a certain maturity in the relatiionship, it shows that the strategic partnership is maturing," Joseph Cheng, a prominent China watcher at City University of Hong Kong, told AFP. Behind the improving ties has been a series of two-yearly summits and high-level visits, a new friendship treaty signed last year and regular joint declarations laying out a common position on international issues.

The regular declarations on the common interests of the two countries lacks real clout but lays out the basis of the partnership, said Piao Jianyi, a researcher at the China Academy of Social Sciences.

"As we move into the new century it is very clear that with Putin's visit the two countries have reached a new consensus on the bilateral relationship," said Piao, who specializes in Russian and North Korean issues.

On the maintenance of a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula, as laid out in the declaration, both Pyongyang and Washington now must acknowledge that Beijing and Moscow have a common stance, he said.

"You have to say that this will be influential, but how the United States and North Korea respond we will have to just wait and see."

Cheng said the regular summits had also worked to reassure Beijing that Moscow's ongoing rapprochment with the West and the United States would not overshadow Sino-Russian ties.

"China is very wary of the United States trying to win over Russia and Russia is clearly trying to make assurances that this is not the case," Cheng said.

This is mostly seen in the efforts by both sides to improve the substantive nature of the relationship by increasing bilateral trade and investment, he said.

Trade is expected to be greatly boosted if the two sides finalize a 1.7 billion dollar oil pipeline project from Russia's Irkust region to northeast China's Daqing this year.

The 2,400-kilometer (1,440-mile) pipeline, due to be completed in 2005, would bring 20-30 million tonnes of Russian oil into China each year, increasing bilateral trade by over six billion dollars annually.

The pipeline has been under discussion for several years with the two sides expected to sign a joint feasibility study this month and begin construction some time next year, Russian sources in Beijing said.

"This will be very significant because of the low level of bilateral trade and investment, which has obviously been the weak link in relations," Cheng said.

Last year, bilateral trade was worth only some 10 billion dollars and is expected to only slightly increase this year.

Meanwhile, Russian sources in Beijing said the failure of the two sides to finalize an ongoing border dispute in Russia's Kharbarovsk region which borders China's northeastern Heilongjiang province was also a potential problem area.

"Not solving the border issue completely is a problem that cannot be neglected, especially for the Russian people living in that area," one Russian said on condition of anonymity.

Russians living in the sparsely populated region have long feared an influx of Chinese and are concerned that Moscow's growing ties with Beijing will open the doors to greater Chinese immigration, he added.