With new gas pipeline, Russia's exports flow east

Smiles and waves between Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping on Monday (December 2).

Though this isn't just a casual video chat between two of the world's most powerful men, but the launch of a landmark pipeline that will transport natural gas from Siberia to north east China - a boost to economic and political ties between Moscow and Beijing and part of Russia's attempt to pivot East, away from the pain of Western financial sanctions imposed over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.

"This is a remarkable, genuinely historical event not only for the global energy market but above all for us, for Russia and China."

The 1,865-mile Power of Siberia pipeline will transport gas from the Chayandinskoye and Kovytka fields in eastern Siberia to the Chinese province of Heilongjiang, which borders Russia, going on to Jilin and Liaoning, China's top grain hub.

Flows via the pipeline will gradually rise to 38 billion cubic meters per year by 2025 - possibly making China Russia's second largest gas customer behind Germany.

The exports are projected to generate, over three decades, $400 billion for Russia's coffers.

(SOUNDBITE) GAZPROM CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ALEXEI MILLER, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN AND GAZPROM EMPLOYEE SAYING:

"Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich I request your permission to open the pipeline valve."

GAZPROM EMPLOYEE: "The pipeline at the Russian-Chinese border is opened. The gas supply has started."

Monday's launch cements China as Russia's top export market and comes as Moscow is hoping to launch two other major energy projects - the Nord Stream 2 undersea Baltic gas pipeline to Germany and the TurkStream pipeline to Turkey and southern Europe.

I suspect that China will thank Russia for the gas, by “nationalizing” the entire length of it, all the way back to Siberia.

That's the difference between treaties between neo-Commies like Merkel and true Commies like Xi.

Maybe not today but one day.

I had a Chinese history teacher in college, Dr. Wu. As a kid in 1949 he was trying to escape the communists to Taiwan. He was next to the ferry but didn’t have money for a ticket. As the ferry started to leave a dockworker said to him, “hey kid if you want to get on just jump on. And he did.

He said the Chinese view Siberia as conquered Chinese territory. I believe it was due to the historical Mongol occupation which the Chinese base their territorial claims on.

From a pro-Sino article from the SCMP:

The 1858 Aigun Treaty between the Russian Empire and the Qing Dynasty established the Sino-Russian border along the Amur River, reversing the previous Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689. Russia got over 600,000 sq km on the left bank of the Amur, known as Priamurye, which had been held by China. With the signing of the Convention of Beijing two years later, it also acquired the vast area on the right bank of Amur, east of its tributary Ussuri River (Ussuri joins Amur in Khabarovsk) – thus gaining complete control over the Primorye region down to Vladivostok.

In China, both treaties are viewed as unequal, drawn up in a time of China’s weakness.

In 1969, when confrontation between Beijing and Moscow peaked, military clashes broke out on the border, raising fears of an all-out war. In 1989, bilateral relations were normalised. The border was largely finalised by the agreement of 1991. Historian Boris Tkachenko said China netted 720 sq km.

Ironically, the territories it got included the Island of Zhenbao – the scene of the bitterest military confrontation in 1969. The issue of the territorial status of the two small islands near Khabarovsk along the junction of Amur and Ussuri rivers – Yinlong and Heixiazi – was left to be settled later. Under the agreement of 2004, the former and about half of the latter were transferred to China. Critics in Russia say that Moscow made too many concessions. With the signing of the additional border agreement in 2008, officially all the territorial issues were settled. China and Russia are now strategic partners. But many in China feel that as the Aigun Treaty and the Convention of Beijing were unjust, China should at some point get back territories it ceded.

Dr. Wu sounds like many Chinese that I have met. They are Chinese thru and thru but have no love for the present government and just want to be left alone.

I suspect that there will be conflict again between Russia and China over the RFE, especially when China sees Russia as weak.

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