On the eve of his Feb. 4 visit to China, Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an article for Xinhua, which has been published on the Kremlin website.
Putin says that “Russian-Chinese relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation, entering a new era, have reached an unprecedented level and have become a model of efficiency, responsibility, and aspiration for the future.” Putin hopes to drive bilateral trade to $200 billion, from its current level of $140 billion. The two countries are cooperating in numerous sectors: communication technologies, medicine, space exploration (a joint lunar research station); energy cooperation (Putin mentions four nuclear power units being built by Rosatom), and increasing settlements in national currency rather than USD.
Russia is especially interested in the development of the Russian Far East, which neighbors China. This means modernization of the Baikal-Amur rail mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway, as well as the port infrastructure. All this, without neglecting environment protection.
