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Putin arrives on China mission
Willy Wo-Lap Lam
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Russian President Vladmir Putin is expected to cement his country's partnership with China during meetings with President Jiang Zemin and other top cadres in Beijing on Monday. Putin, who arrived in the Chinese capital at midnight Monday, had indicated he attached "special significance" to meeting China's newly elected leadership, including Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao. He is due to sign a series of agreements on bilateral cooperation in the fields of energy, trade and technology. Putin and Chinese officials may also finalize arrangements for Russia to sell China around 20 million tons of oil a year from 2005. The oil export, to be transported through a pipeline going into the Daqing Oilfield in northeast China, is expected to reach 30 million tons by 2010. Defense cooperation will also be high on the list of priorities in view of the People's Liberation Army's eagerness to procure sophisticated Russian weapons and military technology. The Russian president indicated to the Chinese media that he looked forward to establishing good personal ties with party chief Hu, who visited Moscow last year. Mutual interestsPutin is to hold separate meetings with Jiang and Hu Monday, in which the Russian leader and his hosts are scheduled to discuss a whole range of diplomatic issues including Iraq, the Korean Peninsula and the war on terrorism. Putin told the official Xinhua news agency over the weekend that joint Russian-Chinese action in the global arena was a "very important factor" for solving major international problems. Diplomatic analysts in Beijing and Moscow said both countries had a mutual interest in containing American domination in world affairs, which had recently manifested itself in NATO's eastward expansion. This was despite Moscow's apparent "tilt" toward the U.S. after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in return for enhanced American economic aid. DominationAccording to senior Chinese Russian expert Zheng Yu, Beijing and Moscow still shared the basic goal of "countering a uni-polar world and bringing forward a multi-polar world." A "uni-polar world " is a Chinese code word for a world order dominated by Washington. Zheng said both countries had a similar stance on the Iraqi problem as well as the issue of Washington's deployment of a missile defense system. Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Russian specialist Xing Guangcheng said Putin's trip had a special meaning because the Russian leader was eager to meet China's new leaders and "to understand their foreign-policy diplomatic thinking and style." Putin is due to address students in China's top Peking University on Tuesday.
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