Putin's Visit Deepens China-Russia Partnership

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 04, 2002

Putin's Visit Deepens China-Russia Partnership

Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to China has succeeded in mapping out a blueprint for the growth of China-Russia ties and has written a new chapter in the strategic cooperative partnership.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to China has succeeded in mapping out a blueprint for the growth of China-Russia ties and has written a new chapter in the strategic cooperative partnership.

Observers here agreed on this summary of President Putin's "tightly-scheduled" China tour as it ended Tuesday.

President Putin and President Jiang Zemin reviewed the smooth growth of China-Russia ties over the past decade, conferred on bilateral relations and other major international issues and reached a comprehensive consensus.

The two presidents signed a joint lengthy statement on Monday. On the same day, government officials from the two sides also signed five cooperation agreements.

President Putin also met with Vice-President Hu Jintao, who waselected the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) last month, top Chinese legislator Li Peng and Premier Zhu Rongji.

The past 10 years have witnessed the steady and mature development of the bilateral relations while the international situation has undergone very complicated and profound changes.

As President Jiang put it: "Peace and development remain the themes of the times, and the multipolarization and economic globalization go on advancing in a tortuous way."

In the contemporary world, however, the unfair and irrational old international political and economic order has yet to alter fundamentally. Sporadic clashes, regional wars, tensions and disruptions occurred one after another, and the gap between rich and the poor countries has increasingly widened.

Faced with this complex international situation, China and Russia have successfully elevated their relations from consideringeach other as friendly countries, to building a constructive partnership and finally into setting up the strategic cooperative partnership.

Regular exchange of visits by their heads of state had guided the development of bilateral relationships. Thanks to their directpromotion, bilateral relations had advanced markedly, observers said.

Over the past 10 years, the heads of state have met on 18 occasions and Presidents Jiang and Putin have met 11 times.

Last month, the CPC convened its 16th National Congress to elect its new leadership with Hu Jintao as the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

During the talks, Jiang told Putin that he was convinced that Hu would soon form good working relations with Putin and continue to consolidate and deepen the strategic cooperative partnership, while Putin said the 16th CPC National Congress was an "important event in China's political life as well as in the world political arena" and he was willing to join hands with the new Chinese leadership to deepen understanding.

In a meeting with Putin on Monday, Hu said he was willing to join with Putin, and he cherished the progress and the high-level cooperation already achieved and would unswervingly push forward the cooperative friendship.

The political aspiration and firm determination of the leaders of both countries, observers said, had taken mutual political trust and strategic coordination to unprecedented heights.

Such trust and coordination was embodied in the China-Russia Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed last year, in which concepts such as being friends forever and never considering each other as foes have opened up new prospects for deepening bilateral strategic cooperation, observers noted.

Both sides spoke highly of the treaty.

Putin called the treaty an "historic event" in promoting bilateral relations, saying that the two sides should coordinate the implementation of the treaty.

President Jiang wished to fully tap the potential of the treatyin advancing bilateral ties, continue to thoroughly implement the treaty and ensure that China and Russia remain forever "good neighbors, good partners and good friends".

Observers acknowledged that the mature and steady political relations had created a good environment for exploring trade and economic cooperation.

The past two years have witnessed rapid growth of China-Russia trade.

According to Chinese customs, the trade between China and Russia jumped 18.1 percent to 9.8 billion US dollars during the first ten months of this year, and bilateral trade reached 10.7 billion US dollars last year.

Both the Chinese and Russian people had benefited substantially from bilateral trade and economic cooperation, and leaders of bothcountries stressed that the Chinese and Russian economies complemented each other.

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said that the development of all-around economic cooperation was bound to be beneficial to the sustainable economic growth of both countries.

He noted that China had broad markets, numerous advantageous industrial sectors, advanced technologies and a sustained increasein investment capacity, while Russia boasted rich natural resources, an extensive industrial and science base and highly skilled people.

President Putin said Russia and China had the capacity to explore new arenas for bilateral cooperation, such as energy, space technology and other high technologies.

While actively cooperating in traditional fields like energy, both sides had agreed to increase the percentage of products with high added-value in bilateral trade. In the meantime, the two willcooperate on Russia's bidding for membership of the World Trade Organization.

Observers said the close consultation and cooperation between China and Russia on major international affairs was another pillarin bilateral ties.

President Jiang said the international community should unite to reduce confrontation and increase dialogue, to reduce arrogance and prejudice and increase exchanges and communication, so as to achieve common development and progress.

The close strategic coordination between China and Russia was avital factor in safeguarding and advancing world peace and stability, Jiang noted.

Putin said Russia and China shared identical and similar stances on current international situations and major global issues, adding that the concerted actions adopted by China and Russia had become an extremely important factor in resolving a series of major international issues.

China and Russia are among those first nations that have long warned of the menace of terrorism. They have conducted fruitful cooperation in fighting terrorism and extremism, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has always been dedicated to combating terrorism.

During President Putin's stay in China, President Jiang himself accompanied Putin to deliver a speech at Beijing University, a very rare occasion in diplomatic activities.

"Russia and China are both faced with tremendous challenges in the 21st century, which are bound to be shouldered by the younger generations," Putin said.

"The futures of China, of Russia and of the world, they all hinge on the younger generations," Jiang said.

Obviously the two leaders had pinned their hopes of developing the Sino-Russian friendship on the younger generations, observers said.

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