MOSCOW: When President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty this week annexing Crimea to great fanfare in the Kremlin and anger in the West, a trusted lieutenant was making his way to Asia to shore up ties with Russia’s eastern allies.
Forcing home the symbolism of his trip, Igor Sechin gathered media in Tokyo the next day to warn Western governments that more sanctions over Moscow’s seizure of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine would be counter-productive.
The underlying message from the head of Russia’s biggest oil company, Rosneft, was clear: If Europe and the United States isolate Russia, Moscow will look East for new business, energy deals, military contracts and political alliances.
The Holy Grail for Moscow is a natural gas supply deal with China that is apparently now close after years of negotiations. If it can be signed when Putin visits China in May, he will be able to hold it up to show that global power has shifted eastwards and he does not need the West.
“The worse Russia’s relations are with the West, the closer Russia will want to be to China. If China supports you, no one can say you’re isolated,” said Vasily Kashin, a China expert at the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) think thank.
Some of the signs are encouraging for Putin. Last Saturday China abstained in a UN Security Council vote on a draft resolution declaring invalid the referendum in which Crimea went on to back union with Russia.
Although China is nervous about referendums in restive regions of other countries which might serve as a precedent for Tibet and Taiwan, it has refused to criticise Moscow.
The support of Beijing is vital for Putin. Not only is China a fellow permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with whom Russia thinks alike, it is also the world’s second biggest economy and it opposes the spread of Western-style democracy.
Little wonder, then, that Putin thanked China for its understanding over Ukraine in a Kremlin speech on Tuesday before signing the treaty claiming back Crimea, 60 years after it was handed to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
Chinese President Xi Jinping showed how much he values ties with Moscow, and Putin in particular, by making Russia his first foreign visit as China’s leader last year and attending the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi last month.
Many Western leaders did not go to the Games after criticism of Russia’s record on human rights. By contrast, when Putin and Xi discussed Ukraine by telephone on March 4, the Kremlin said their positions were “close”.
A strong alliance would suit both countries as a counterbalance to the United States.
But despite the positive signs from Beijing, Putin may find China’s embrace is not quite the bear hug he would like.
There is still some wariness between Beijing and Moscow, who almost went to war over a border dispute in the 1960s, when Russia was part of the Communist Soviet Union.
State-owned Russian gas firm Gazprom hopes to pump 38 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas per year to China from 2018 via the first pipeline between the world’s largest producer of conventional gas to the largest consumer.
“May is in our plans,” a Gazprom spokesman said, when asked about the timing of an agreement.
A company source said: “It would be logical to expect the deal during Putin’s visit to China.”
But the two sides are still wrangling over pricing and Russia’s cooling relations with the West could make China toughen its stance. Russian industry sources say Beijing targets a lower price than Europe, where Gazprom generates around half of its revenues, pays.
Upheaval at China National Petroleum Corp, at the centre of a corruption investigation, could cause also delays, and Valery Nesterov, an analyst with Sberbank CIB in Moscow, said China also needs time to review its energy strategy and take into account shale gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
“The bottom line is that the threat of sanctions on energy supplies from Russia has indirectly strengthened China’s position in the negotiations,” Nesterov said.
Russia meets almost a third of Europe’s gas needs and supplies to the European Union and Turkey last year exceeded 162 bcm, a record high. However, China overtook Germany as Russia’s biggest buyer of crude oil this year thanks to Rosneft securing deals to boost eastward oil supplies via the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline and another crossing Kazakhstan. (Reuters)
