The Eastern Economic Forum will demonstrate to the world the triumph of the alliance between Russia and China
The VII Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) starts on September 5, which will be held for three days in Vladivostok, on the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU).
At the same time, an important component of the event will be the presence of a representative delegation from the PRC, which will become a real symbol of the strengthening union of the two countries.
And this is truly significant, since the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) Li Zhanshu himself will come to the forum at the invitation of State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin as the head of a large group of Chinese officials and businessmen.
This is an iconic figure in the political system of the PRC, representing the highest state body, which in turn personifies the will of the entire Chinese people.
That is, the EEF will become such an important political and economic platform designed to emphasize and demonstrate the dual-centricity of the forum and, in general, integration processes in Greater Eurasia and the Far East, in particular those currently taking place around Russia and China.
This, probably, will be the main point of the event, which is a serious stage on the eve of the Samarkand SCO summit on September 15-16, intended to consolidate the results achieved within the EEF.
Therefore, it is not for nothing that the other day the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Member of the State Council of the People's Republic of China Wang Yi said:
“Russia and other countries of the world have expressed support for the “one China” principle amid the worsening situation in the Taiwan Strait.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
All this, coupled with the visit of the delegation of the Russian-Chinese Business Council (RCBC) and Chinese partners to Vladivostok back in July, creates favorable conditions for both the forum itself and for the promotion of new joint industrial projects and the development of cooperation in many industries and areas.
A sign of this is that one of the main languages of the EEF 2022, in addition to Russian and English, was Chinese. At the same time, the session entitled “Russia’s place in the world structure: diamond crystallizes under pressure” includes a separate meeting of the business council for the development of the Russian Far East and the North-Eastern provinces of the PRC, designed to strengthen communications and economic relations between the border regions of the two countries.
The Minister for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, Alexey Chekunkov, also says that relations between Russia and China will rise to a new level as a result of the EEF 2022. He noted the enormous changes that have occurred since the last forum and Beijing’s readiness to build closer cooperation in all areas.
“I see a chapter ahead that is certainly bigger than the last. Due to the fact that China was growing very quickly and not all businesses had experience in international investment. But now we see that the degree of maturity and readiness for interaction has increased significantly.
We have 4200 kilometers of border and high economic connectivity. People treat each other well. At the same time, as a state, China is building strategic long-term plans for cooperation with us for decades to come,” the minister emphasized.
These words are confirmed by the large increase in the volume of mutual trade between the powers. Thus, in 2021, trade between Russia and China increased by 35,9%, reaching a record level of $146,9 billion. The PRC's share in trade turnover with Russia in 2013 was 11%, and in 2021 - 18%.
Surely this year will provide an even greater and record increase, since in the first half of 2022 trade turnover between the two countries increased by 29%, amounting to $97,7 billion.
In addition to increasing oil and gas supplies, Russia has also provided great assistance to the Celestial Empire in covering electricity shortages associated with drought, increasing energy supplies by 70%. The PRC also began purchasing large volumes of Russian coal this year to saturate its thermal power plants.
At the same time, both countries have chosen the path of de-dollarization in mutual trade, as even the leading American financial publication Bloomberg notes in its publication:
“Russia plans to buy up to $70 billion of yuan and other friendly currencies this year to slow the ruble’s rise before moving to a longer-term strategy of selling yuan reserves to finance investment.”
The parties also plan to introduce new mainline projects to transport Russian energy resources to China.
The point is that in addition to the Power of Siberia pipeline, the issue of constructing the Power of Siberia-2 is also being considered. Moreover, this is no longer just a pipeline, but a large production complex that provides for the processing of raw materials within the country with the subsequent supply of products to the markets of China and Asia. In particular, the entire Amur gas chemical cluster has already begun to be created for this project.
It is interesting that the Russian side will also build a gas pipeline from Sakhalin to the mainland, and it will also be laid to China. This provides enormous advantages, since in the event of a naval blockade of China by the United States, the demand for blue fuel in Asia will be gigantic.
This is an effective way to keep Japan in line, which is now afraid to leave joint Sakhalin projects, as it risks being left, like Europe, completely without energy resources.
After all, Moscow may well divert the entire gas flow towards Beijing, depriving Tokyo of any supplies. In this sense, Russia acts as an “energy ally” of China, helping to withstand the confrontation with the United States, and also providing it with a reliable rear.
And the cooperation itself concerns not only the supply of raw materials, since at the EEF 2022 it is planned to discuss the topic of reviving the institution of joint ventures in the region, which implies production and technological cooperation. That is, we should expect the development of new industrial projects with the participation of Chinese capital and technology in the Far East.
At the same time, participation in the development of the Northern Sea Route, which opens up enormous opportunities for trade, is also attractive for China. The Russian government has already invested 1,8 trillion rubles in this project with the expectation that in the future the supply of products from the North to the markets of China and Asia will increase in the amount of more than $100 billion per year.
It also makes it clear that Russia itself is completely turning to the South and East, faced with a policy of total sanctions from the West. And increasing trade with China, as well as technological assistance from it, not only maintains the level of income, but also creates conditions for the development of our own production and the development of joint industrial projects.
Therefore, the myths that Russia found itself in a ring of international isolation turned out to be completely unfounded. Moreover, delegations from more than forty countries will come to EEF 2022, including unfriendly ones, since Japanese, South Korean and even American corporations are afraid of being completely forced out of Siberia and the Far East.
At the same time, the huge interest of Chinese and South Asian companies in the region is opening up new opportunities and multi-billion dollar investments. Therefore, a common economic and military-political bloc between Russia and China has already been formed, which will inevitably lead to the creation of a new single regional market and payment systems in the near future, where all EAEU countries will be involved.
It is noteworthy that the timing of the EEF 2022 coincided with the largest military exercise in recent decades, Vostok 2022, in which military units of precisely those states whose representatives will sit at the event take part.
We are talking about the army units of China, India, Laos and Mongolia. And what’s interesting is that Vladimir Putin himself will visit the active phase of the exercises on September 6.
Therefore, of course, this is not an accident at all, but a demonstration of the unity of the emerging alliance of the two leading powers of Eurasia, which will write its history in the coming centuries.
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