Vladimir Putin wrapped up his summit in Beijing with Xi Jinping on May 20, the Russian leader's 25th visit to China.

Putin walked away with more than40 agreements, but he did not leave with the prize he has long sought.

As an initial matter, forget about the pacts that were inked. "When you look at all the 'agreements,' they are only memoranda of understanding," Dmitri Alperovitch, chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, said to Gatestone. "In other words, they are merely invitations to talk more."

Russia and China havetalked a lotabout the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, some 12 years in fact. Putin traveled to the Chinese capital in May primarily to get the green light for the project, which will transport 1.77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas annually across 1,616 miles from the Yamal Peninsula on the north coast of Siberia through Mongolia and then to Shanghai.

The pipeline is especially important to Russia because it will replace sales to Europe, lost because of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

On May 20, Moscow announced that Russia and China had reached a "shared understanding of the main parameters." "There is agreement on the route and on how the project will be built," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskovsaid. "Some details still need to be finalized, but in general such an understanding is already in place."

There is no timetable for the finalization of the deal, Peskov stated.

Reports state that Russia and China continued to haggle over the price of pipeline gas.

That assessment is true, but the negotiations are more complex than that statement implies. "Russia is running out of capital," said Alperovitch, also co-author ofWorld on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century. "Putin does not have the cash to build Power of Siberia 2, and he has not been able to convince the Chinese to pay for it."

The Chinese think they have Putin over a barrel, but they are overestimating their strength. They need Russian energy as fast as they can get it.

Source: Gatestone Institute :: Articles