Putin Arrives in China for Regional Summit - New York Times

BEIJING â€" President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia arrived in China on Tuesday, a visit that contrasted with his shunning of a summit of world leaders hosted by President Obama last month, and intended to drive home the existence of an alternative group, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, that excludes the United States.

Admired by the Chinese for his staying power as leader of Russia for 12 years, Mr. Putin and President Hu Jintao will discuss their approaches to Syria, Iran and their efforts to squeeze the United States out of Central Asia, Chinese and American analysts said. Both countries are also opposed to an American plan for a missile defense system in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe that is designed as protection against Iran.

In what appears to be a show of solidarity, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting as an observer and the Kremlin announced that Mr. Putin would meet with him. Russia is scheduled to host a next round of talks later this month among world powers on the Iranian nuclear program.

In the face of the commonality of interests, however, the relationship between China and Russia is seeded with historic rivalries from the cold war, and the realization in Moscow of a sudden change in the power equation: that China is now far richer than Russia.

Overlaying these factors is the inability of the two countries to come to an agreement on gas that Russia, the world’s biggest producer, owns and China, the biggest consumer, wants.

At first, China had expected Mr. Putin would make Beijing his first overseas trip after his inauguration as president in early May. But Europe is Russia’s biggest energy customer, and Mr. Putin visited Germany and France last Friday, and dropped by Belarus and Uzbekistan in the past week.

Still, the visit, followed by the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, is fraught with the symbolism of two major powers interested in further developing a multilateral organization in which the United States is not present and Iran plays a role, if only as observer.

“Iran too is very keen on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert and former State Department official in the Obama administration. “That it is happening in China reflects China’s increasing interest in Central Asia and also its desire to lead international and regional alliances without the U.S.”

The six member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Afghanistan will attend the meeting in Beijing as an observer, a sign of China’s interests there after the 2014 withdrawal by the United States.

Despite what would seem to be a confluence of interest on energy, there was little chance that Russia and China would resolve the outstanding differences over delivery of gas to China in time for an agreement between the two leaders, Arkady V. Dvorkovich, Mr. Putin’s economic aide, said on the eve of the visit.

The sticking point after two decades of talks remained price, with Russia wanting to sell its gas at $350 to $400 per 1,000 cubic meters, and China prepared to pay $200 to $250, according to Chinese press reports.

Indeed, the English language newspaper China Daily recently reported that China, frustrated by the stalemate on gas price in price between China National Petroleum Corporation and Gazprom, increased its supplies from Turkmenistan, a sign of how Beijing’s economic strength allows it to play the market.

Even so, the atmospherics on energy had improved and there was now an “opportunity for both sides to unfold a new age of energy cooperation,” said Xu Xiaojie, a former director of investment of overseas investment for the China National Petroleum Corporation.

How much time Mr. Putin and Mr. Hu would devote to Syria was not known. The two countries “cover each other’s back in the United Nations Security Council” on Syria, and both remained in favor of keeping the government of President Bashar Hafez al-Assad in place, a senior American official said.

Both leaders seemed unconvinced that Mr. Assad was losing his grip on power, though if the Syrian leader alienated 70 percent of the population it was conceivable that Russia would cut its losses and become part of a solution, with China following suit, the official said.

China reiterated the joint approach on Syria at the daily press briefing at the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, hours after Mr. Putin’s arrival.

“Both sides oppose external intervention in Syria and oppose regime change by force,” Liu Weimin, the spokesman said.

Russia is opposed to the Obama administration’s plans for missile defense sites in Poland and Eastern Europe that are designed as protection against Iran and China also has problems with American missile defense, said Lora Saalman, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing. China supports Russian concerns, but has its own set of worries when it comes to American missile defense, namely in the Asia-Pacific, Ms. Saalman said.

Within the realm of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Afghan leader, President Hamid Karzai, is likely to be accorded special attention. China’s Vice Foreign Minister, Cheng Guoping, said that Afghanistan had been given observer status for the first time at the summit where the post-2014 scenario in Afghanistan was likely to be discussed.

China, in particular, had started talking to elements of the Taliban to try and ensure protection of its iron ore, steel and other mineral interests in Afghanistan after the American withdrawal, said Sajjan Gohel, international security director of the Asia-Pacific Foundation based in London, who visited Beijing recently.

Bree Feng contributed research.