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Putin upbeat on Bejing's new leaders
By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
(CNN) -- Leaders of China and Russia have expressed confidence their "strategic, cooperative partnership" will be further strengthened by the younger generation of leaders. The main goal of the Beijing visit by Russian President Vladmir Putin, which ended Tuesday, was to familiarize himself with General Secretary Hu Jintao and other younger cadres elected at the 16th Party Congress last month. State media on Wednesday quoted President Jiang Zemin as saying he trusted General Secretary Hu and Putin could "very quickly build up a good working relationship." Jiang was quoted as telling Putin "Chinese-Russian good neighborly relationships need to be brought forward by the younger generation." Putin, who met Jiang on Monday and Tuesday, also indicated "the Russian side will cooperate with China's younger generation of leadership" in enhancing good neighborly ties. And in his meeting with the Russian president, Hu, also state vice-president, pointed out the new Beijing leadership would "incorporate past [achievements] and open up new vistas" in bilateral ties. On Tuesday, Putin gave a speech at Peking University, the cradle of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, when college students were at the forefront of demands for democratic reforms. Speaking through a Chinese interpreter, Putin told several hundred students his two daughters had taken up Chinese kung-fu and language studies. He expressed confidence the two peoples could "jointly create a great era of Russia-Chinese relationship."
Political analysts in Beijing said the 76-year-old Jiang was anxious to consolidate gains in relations with Russia before his retirement from the state presidency in March. Shortly before the 16th Congress, Jiang held a summit with U.S. President George W. Bush in Texas, in which both sides sought new common grounds based on cooperation in combating global terrorism. The analysts said the Chinese side was happy that despite Moscow's apparent "tilt" toward the U.S. earlier this year, Putin affirmed together with Jiang the imperative of building a "multi-polar world order." This was a code phrase signifying opposition to Washington's domination of world affairs. Senior Russia expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Pu Guangji said the Putin visit had resulted in a "new consensus" between Beijing and Moscow particularly over issues such as disarming Iraq and North Korea. At their joint press conference earlier this week, Putin agreed with Jiang's stance that "peaceful solutions are the priority" regarding thorny global issues such as Iraq.
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