Chinese PresidentHu Jintao arrived in Moscow on Monday for crucial talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as part of a worldwide drive to secure new energy sources for China.
Officials from the two countries were expected to seal trade deals worth up to four billion dollars during Hu's three-day visit to Russia, as well as discuss the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea.
But the key to the visit is energy-hungry China's bid to obtain guarantees of increased oil and gas deliveries from Russia, the biggest energy producer in the world, analysts said.
Last month, Hu went on a 12-day tour to eight African nations that was aimed largely at boosting Chinese investment in natural resources in the continent and securing oil imports from war-torn Sudan.
"Energy is one of the most significant and promising areas of co-operation with China. It is based on large projects of a long-term and mutually beneficial character," a Kremlin official said ahead of the talks.
The Kommersant daily said that the main agreement to be finalised during Hu's visit was a deal between the Russian and Chinese railway companies that would increase crude oil exports to China.
Russia exported 15 million tonnes of oil to China in 2006, 11 million tonnes of it by rail, officials said. Plans to boost shipments have sparked concern that supplies to the West might suffer.
The visit is also expected to touch on Chinese worries about delays in the construction of a planned oil pipeline from the fields of Siberia to the Chinese oil hub of Daqing, Kommersant reported.
The two leaders are set to meet in Moscow on Monday and sign a joint declaration on Russian-Chinese partnership. They will meet again on Tuesday to inaugurate a major exhibition of Chinese artefacts inside the Kremlin.
Hu will then travel to Tatarstan, a mainly Muslim province in central Russia that has extensive oil reserves and has attracted high levels of foreign investment.
Hu and Putin were expected to talk up strong diplomatic ties between their two countries, which have taken closely aligned positions in talks meant to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme and stem Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"They will definitely consult on what position to take in case the Iran crisis gets worse," said Andrei Ryabov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Centre.
Hu said ahead of the trip, his third to Russia since becoming president, that the visit would further cement economic and diplomatic relations that have grown significantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
But Russian newspapers said that behind the high-flown rhetoric, Hu's trip would be about hard-nosed business bargaining.
"Behind the ceremonial facade, the Chinese president is in for some tense negotiations," Kommersant said. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta ran a headline reading: "Difficult Neighbour: The imbalance between Russia and China is growing."
Among the possible sources of discord, Kommersant said, were Russian concerns about China's space ambitions and Chinese worries about the quality of Russian arms imports.
Nearly 200 Chinese companies selling everything from aerospace technology to tea will showcase their products during the visit at a trade exhibition in Moscow, China's biggest ever in a foreign country.
Both sides said bilateral trade jumped over the past year, though their statistics differed: China said trade grew 15 percent in 2006, while Russia said trade grew 43 percent over the same period.
AFP
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