Putin Arrives in China for Regional Summit

[samuel]

8 May 2012 Last updated at 13:27
China buying oil from Iran with yuan

China is promoting the usage of the yuan as a rival international currency to the dollar

China is buying crude oil from Iran using its currency the yuan, an Iranian diplomat has said.

Oil transactions are usually settled in dollars but US sanctions make it difficult for Iran to accept payments in the US currency.

Iran is using the revenue to buy goods and services from China, Mohammed Reza Fayyad, Iran's ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, confirmed.

China is the biggest buyer of Iranian crude oil exports.

The country buys some $20bn-30bn of oil from Iran each year, but the US has been pressuring Beijing to join an international boycott of Iran over Tehran's nuclear programme.

The Iranian ambassador's comments, reported by the Reuters news agency, confirmed a report in the Financial Times that claimed that Unipec - a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned oil firm Sinopec - was buying the oil, as was another company called Zhuhai Zhenrong.

Meanwhile, China has been trying to promote usage of yuan as an international currency as a rival to the dollar, including the establishment of a new offshore trading centre in London alongside the existing centre in Hong Kong.

According to the FT report, China has been providing the currency to Iran via Russian banks rather than its own domestic banks.

Lobbying efforts
The US plans to implement a round of sanctions, starting on 28 June, against banks based in countries that do not cut their oil imports from Iran.

The US and its western partners suspect Iran of using its nuclear programme to develop the capacity to make atomic weapons.

Tehran says the programme is solely for civilian purposes.

The US has already said it will not apply sanctions to banks in Japan and 10 EU countries, after they all agreed to cut their imports from Iran.

China, India and South Korea, now find themselves at the centre of current US lobbying efforts.

China has already cut its imports from Iran by half in the first three months of this year, although this was mainly in order to negotiate better trading terms with Tehran.

It is unclear whether the cuts will be continued into the rest of the year.

China is highly dependent on crude oil imports, and petrol prices in China have been rising sharply this year.

[samuel]

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Putin Arrives in China for Regional Summit
June 5, 2012

BEIJING — The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, arrived in China on Tuesday for meetings that appeared aimed at strengthening a partnership between the two countries and offsetting the influence of the United States.

Admired by the Chinese for his staying power as leader of Russia for 12 years, Mr. Putin will discuss with President Hu Jintao their common approaches to Syria and Iran and their efforts to squeeze the United States out of Central Asia, Chinese and American analysts said. Both Beijing and Moscow also oppose an American plan for a missile- defense system in Poland and other parts of eastern Europe that is intended as protection against Iran.

Mr. Putin’s visit, during which he will participate in a summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security organization that includes Russia, China and former Soviet republics in Central Asia, stood in stark contrast to his decision not to attend a summit meeting hosted by President Obama last month in the United States.

After their meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Putin and Mr. Hu, in a show of unity, urged international support for U.N. envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan for Syria, despite calls from Arab and Western states for a tougher response to the bloodshed, Reuters reported.

In what appeared to be a show of solidarity with Iran, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting as an observer. The Kremlin announced that Mr. Putin would meet separately with Mr. Ahmadinejad. Later this month, Russia is scheduled to host the next round of talks among world powers on the Iranian nuclear program.

Despite their commonality of interests, the relationship between China and Russia is seeded with historic rivalries from the cold war, and the realization in Moscow that the power equation has changed dramatically in recent years because China’s overall economy is now far larger than Russia’s.

The two countries have yet to come to an agreement on delivering gas from Russia, the world’s second biggest producer behind the United States, to China, one of the fastest-growing consumers.

China had originally expected Mr. Putin would make Beijing his first overseas trip after his inauguration as president in early May. But Europe is Russia’s biggest energy customer, and Mr. Putin visited Germany and France last Friday, and dropped by Belarus and Uzbekistan in the past week.

The talks between Mr. Putin and Mr. Hu, along with the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit meeting, are fraught with the symbolism of two major powers interested in further developing a multilateral organization that does not include the United States, and where Iran plays a role, if only as observer.

“Iran, too, is very keen on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert and former State Department official in the Obama administration. “That it is happening in China reflects China’s increasing interest in Central Asia and also its desire to lead international and regional alliances without the U.S.”

The six members of the organization are China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Afghanistan, like Iran, will also attend the meeting in Beijing as an observer, a sign of China’s growing interests there after the planned 2014 withdrawal by the United States.

Despite what would seem to be a confluence of needs on energy, there was little chance that Russia and China would resolve the outstanding differences over delivery of gas to China in time for an agreement between the two leaders, Arkady V. Dvorkovich, a vice prime minister, said on the eve of the visit. The sticking point after two decades of talks remained price, with Russia wanting to sell its gas at $350 to $400 per 1,000 cubic meters, while China is prepared to pay only $200 to $250, according to Chinese press reports.

Indeed, the English language newspaper China Daily recently reported that China, frustrated by the stalemate on gas price between China National Petroleum Corporation and Gazprom, increased its supplies from Turkmenistan, a sign of how Beijing’s economic strength allows it to play the market.

Even so, the atmospherics on energy had improved and there was now an “opportunity for both sides to unfold a new age of energy cooperation,” said Xu Xiaojie, a former director of investment of overseas investment for the China National Petroleum Corporation.

On the subject of the violence in Syria, China and Russia, both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, have blocked efforts by Western powers to condemn or call for the removal of President Assad. After the meeting between Mr. Hu and Mr. Putin on Tuesday, Chinese state television reported that “On the Syrian issue, the two heads of state said the international community should continue to support the joint Arab League/U.N. Special Envoy Annan’s mediation efforts and the U.N. monitoring mission, to promote a political solution to the problem in Syria.”

The two countries “cover each other’s back in the United Nations Security Council” on Syria, a senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol

Both leaders seemed unconvinced that Mr. Assad was losing his grip on power, the official said, though he added that if it appeared that the Syrian leader had alienated the vast majority of the population, it was conceivable that Russia would distance itself from its longtime ally, with China following suit.

China reiterated the joint approach on Syria at the daily press briefing at the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, hours after Mr. Putin’s arrival. “Both sides oppose external intervention in Syria and oppose regime change by force,” Liu Weimin, the spokesman said.

Within the realm of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Afghan leader, President Hamid Karzai, is likely to be accorded special attention. China’s Vice Foreign Minister, Cheng Guoping, said that Afghanistan had been given observer status for the first time at the summit.

China, in particular, has started talking to elements of the Taliban to try and ensure protection of its iron ore, steel and other mineral interests in Afghanistan after the American withdrawal, said Sajjan Gohel, international security director of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, based in London, who visited Beijing recently.

[samuel]

普京《人民日報》刊文

稱中俄「眾志成城」

普京昨在中國官方《人民日報》發表題為「俄羅斯與中國﹕合作新天地」的文章，引用中國成語「眾志成城」，形容中俄關係非常穩固，「沒有各種各樣的偏見和成見」，「在當今這個明顯缺乏穩定和相互信任的世界裏顯得異常可貴」。

倡積極利用本幣結算

普京表示，基建與能源合作、相互投資是中俄戰勝挑戰、創造新職位，以及為企業提供機遇的重要資源。他指出，中俄貿易額去年達835億美元，創歷史新高，兩國應更積極利用本幣結算協議，降低雙邊貿易風險及提高盧布和人民幣的地位。他還主張兩國加強航空航天等高技術合作，促成「真正的科技聯盟」。

普京總結稱﹕「中國有句成語：『眾志成城』。我們願意為了我們兩國和人民的利益共同努力。而這一定能夠給我們帶來豐碩的成果。」