Massive Co-operation for Russia And China

[icyfroth]

China and Russia Lay Foundation for Massive Economic Cooperation

In the past decade, Beijing and Moscow have been more competitors than partners. But that relationship may now be changing as Russian and Chinese leaders are considering combining their two countries’ regional economic projects — the Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road Economic Belt, respectively.

While meeting at a two-day summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Ufa, Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are reportedly discussing a framework that would merge China’s multi-billion dollar network of roads, railways, and pipelines through Central Asia with the Eurasian Union, the post-Soviet economic bloc that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. The two projects would be combined under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and if the proposal is completed, it would make the opaque organization the preeminent economic body from Shanghai to St. Petersburg.

Leaders at Ufa approved applications by India and Pakistan to join as full members of the SCO on Friday, and Russia hopes Iran will join after United Nations sanctions on Tehran are lifted. “A reinvigorated SCO fueled by a China-Russia partnership could suddenly make the organization very relevant,” said Luca Anceschi, a Central Asia expert at the University of Glasgow.

As Putin has found himself isolated from the West and his economy weakened by sanctions and falling oil prices, the Kremlin has aimed to bolster its relationship with Beijing. Russia’s pivot east has come mostly in the form of energy deals, exemplified by a gas deal last year worth more than $400 billion. Moscow also joined the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank this year, and is in talks at the Ufa summit to start a new development bank under the SCO, a proposition that Moscow had previously nixed for fear of giving China too much power in its sphere of influence.

Entire Article Here

Hmmm...I wonder how the USA feel about that? And where will Australia fit in? That sort of infrastucture building could be a very lucrative for us. Providing any iron ore mines still belong us by that time, that is.