Analysis: Jamie Robertson, BBC News
- The gas deal between Russia and China was signed at 04:00 China time,
which gives some indication of the level of urgency over these talks. Mr Putin
appears to have been determined not to leave Shanghai without a deal - and he
got one.
But the financial details are a "commercial secret", so we don't know how
much he had to give away to get it. Certainly China needs the gas to help it cut
its coal-fired smog levels, and it wants to diversify supply. But it had the
luxury of time in which to negotiate, something Mr Putin was short of.
The perceived motive for the deal is that Russia needs a second market
for its gas, so it can face up to European sanctions. Given that the "Power of
Siberia" pipeline won't start pumping gas into Chinese factories until 2018 at
the earliest, its economic effect on the European crisis will be limited.
More important may be the investment that China will make into Russia's
power and transport infrastructure. Putin may not have managed to sign the most
advantageous of gas deals on Wednesday but the opening of economic doors with
China could well be the greater achievement.
Rain Newton-Smith, head of emerging markets at Oxford Economics, said: "The
whole tenet of the deal has a symbolic value - it says that the two countries
are prepared to work with one another. For instance there were other elements
such as Chinese participation in Russian transport infrastructure and power
generation.
"It is similar in many ways to China's investments in Africa where they drive
a hard bargain over the price of raw materials but then provide infrastructure
for the economies they are doing business with.
Jonathan Marcus, the BBC's defence and diplomatic correspondent said tensions
between Russia and the west were not just over Ukraine: "There are fundamental
differences over Syria and about the whole direction in which President Vladimir
Putin is taking his country.
"Thus this deal could symbolise an important moment of transition - when both
in economic and geo-political terms, Russia's gaze begins to look more towards
the East than towards the West."
Siberian
power
Another sticking point on the deal has been the construction of pipelines
into China.
Currently there is one complete pipeline that runs across Russia's Far East
to the Chinese border, called The Power of Siberia. It was started in 2007,
three years after Gazprom and CNPC signed their initial agreement in 2004.
But financing the $22-30bn cost of sending it into China has been central to
the latest discussions.
China is Russia's largest single trading partner, with bilateral trade flows
of $90bn (£53bn) in 2013.
The two neighbours aim to double the volume to $200bn in 10 years.
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