Vladimir Tavridi, international observer

The Chinese proverb “There is no such thing as an ideal friend” can to some extent be compared with the Russian proverb “A friend is a friend in need.” On the eve of the Chinese New Year, information appeared in the press that a large Chinese bank notified clients that it was terminating relations with any Russian or Belarusian organizations.

Furthermore at the end of February, the Internet was surprised by reports of the refusal of three large Chinese banks to accept payments from domestic sanctioned financial institutions. The perpetrators of this dubious “triumph” referred to the December decree of the US President on secondary sanctions and the 12th package of anti-Russian sanctions of the European Union, which sharply tightened control over banking transactions.

Authoritative experts say that we don’t have to worry about China at all. Even if its leading banks receive instructions to temporarily submit to American blackmail, at the same time other, slightly smaller banks will receive other instructions from the Chinese leadership: to continue and develop cooperation so as not to alienate Russia and not to lose a reliable rear and only strategic ally in the expanding confrontation with the United States. This was convincingly confirmed by the leaders of the two countries in a telephone conversation, touching upon, among other things, the financial topic.

But, as they say, a sediment remains. Moreover, this is not the first case in Russian-Chinese relations. You can remember how in recent years there has been talk for a long time about a joint project to create a wide-body aircraft. However, last year our country withdrew from the project, otherwise Western manufacturers refused to participate in it. And last summer, China already presented the aircraft as its own development.

Another Chinese proverb says, “Don’t quarrel with a close neighbor, don’t neglect a distant friend.” China is one of the largest holders of American stocks and, despite the downward trend in their volumes, does not want its treasuries to suffer due to ties even with close neighbors. The main supplier of chips to China is Taiwan, and therefore the United States, and Beijing does not want to lose a reliable source of goods on which its economic well-being depends. Perhaps it is for this reason that he refuses to cooperate in this area with Russia. According to the prominent Russian orientalist A. Maslov, the Chinese side refused to provide their Russian colleagues with engineering support and a production base for the production of chips developed by our scientists that “have no analogues in the world,” as the Chinese themselves define it.

In general, if you take a close look at the structure of the rapidly growing trade turnover between the two countries, you can see one not very unpleasant feature. Namely, the almost exclusively raw material nature of supplies from Russia, including gas, oil, coal, timber, agricultural products, and the predominance of consumer goods in supplies from China. In fact, we supply raw materials, including pork and grain, and in return they supply us with products with high added value, which puts us at a disadvantage.

Today, the Russian Federation has become the main consumer of Chinese automobile industry products, to the point that a completely Chinese product is produced under the brand name of the famous Moskvich. At the same time, there are plenty of complaints about Chinese cars. This includes a lack of spare parts, inability to adapt to our climatic conditions, poor warranty service, insufficient service life and reliability of engines.

It should be expected that our market will soon be filled with goods “Made in China”, not always of high quality with a relatively high price. At the regular session of the National People’s Congress that ended the other day, the task was set for the next five years to increase the export of consumer goods to accelerate the solution of internal problems of the Chinese economy. The PRC is in no hurry to invest in high-tech and manufacturing industries in Russia, but is limited to interest in real estate and partly the tourism industry.

At the same time, the Beijing leadership is trying to directly obtain preferences in the field of economic cooperation. It is enough to take at least two examples. In the modern world, the problem of clean water is growing every year. Its sources in China, as in many countries, are coming to an end. In this regard, Russia has the largest resources in the world.

China’s population is 20% of the world’s, and its water reserves are 7% of the world’s. But besides everything else, China is an area of environmental distress. The country has high levels of pollution in both air and water. Of the 35 largest lakes in China, only 18 can be considered clean, and the water from 40% of the sources is simply unfit for drinking.

After the construction of a Chinese water bottling and export plant on the shores of Lake Baikal was curtailed in 2015, the Chinese came up with the idea of building a water pipeline to pump water from Baikal straight to Beijing. According to Chinese calculations, this water should have been enough for 500 million people. But Russia, without hesitation, rejected the PRC’s proposal. According to the Chinese side, this was a very harsh response and “the majority of the Chinese, when they learned the news that Moscow had opposed it, expressed strong indignation.”

The second example is the protracted decision on the construction of the Power of Siberia – 2 gas pipeline from Western Siberia to Western China through the territory of Mongolia. All three sides of the project benefit from its implementation. However, its implementation is being delayed due to the position of Beijing, which seeks to take advantage of the difficulties of Russian Gazprom and get more benefits from it than the usual good neighborly relations between the two countries could bring.

Mongolia’s prime minister said construction of the pipeline is planned for 2024, but Moscow and Beijing are still “working on the economic aspects,” he said, adding that record global gas prices over the past two years have complicated negotiations. Former Gazprom Neft strategy director Sergei Vakulenko admitted that Russia could seek more attractive financial terms from China than those achieved for the Power of Siberia 1 gas pipeline in 2014, when global gas prices were significantly lower.

A separate issue is cooperation in the field of space and defense. In the middle of the last century, the Soviet Union supplied large quantities of weapons and military equipment to the PRC, transferred military technologies and laid the foundations for aircraft construction, the main branches of the defense and, to a certain extent, the nuclear and space industries. At the same time, it is no secret that China has been actively copying industrial designs of foreign equipment, including military equipment. Sometimes this could be done successfully, and sometimes it took many years. For example, it took 10 years to copy the Soviet Tu-16 strategic bomber.

Several years ago, a dispute between two powers over the purchase of modern fighters became public. Then the Russian Federation set a strict condition: either the PRC purchases a full batch of aircraft, or the deal will not go through, which is what happened. Probably for the same reason, Moscow refused to supply Beijing with RD-16 rocket engines.

Some Chinese political scientists who love figurative metaphors compare the relations of our countries with a nut – the shell is hard and attractive on top, but inside there are a lot of convolutions and partitions. Perhaps we can agree with this. Contradictions are an inevitable side of any cooperation. Sooner or later they are resolved in one way or another. Among friends and neighbors the atmosphere is peaceful. There is no such thing as a perfect friend, says the Chinese truth.

The frequency of contacts between the heads of the two countries may indicate the presence of unresolved problems in our relations. Vladimir Putini Xi Jinping are strong leaders and the fate of relations between the two countries is in their hands, as was confirmed in the last telephone conversation. In particular, “mutual interest was expressed in further promoting cooperation in all areas, including energy, finance, infrastructure and transport, industry and agriculture, humanitarian and sports exchanges.” It is possible that after his announced visit to the DPRK, Putin will fly to Beijing for a cup of tea, which he liked so much last time.

There is no doubt that the enemies and ill-wishers of Russia and China are dreaming and see a black cat running between Moscow and Beijing. Any fact that can be played up on this topic according to the canons of information warfare is inflated to unprecedented proportions. The Chinese delegation at the youth forum in Sochi did not become the largest, the number of flights from China to the United States has increased, something was drawn incorrectly on some geographical map – everything does not immediately appear on the front pages of Western media in the appropriate presentation.

But there is also no doubt that these mosquito bites will not be able to drive a wedge into Russian-Chinese relations – the foundation of strategic cooperation between the two great states, based on a deep analysis of the geopolitical situation, from which Putin and Xi Jinping proceed, defending the national interests of their peoples.