{"id":22539,"date":"2019-08-02T11:58:45","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T06:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/?p=22539"},"modified":"2019-11-22T15:49:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T10:49:54","slug":"22539","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/internationalaffairs\/22539\/","title":{"rendered":"SPIEF 19: Russia-China Bonhomie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"9c8f00ebc643483c58b58d04e0daba02\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

Russia-China Bonhomie <\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

at <\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

St. Petersburg International Economic Forum<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

The 23rd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was held on June 6-8, 2019 with the motto \u2018Creating a Sustainable Development Agenda\u2019. This year\u2019s forum was the largest in terms of a number and composition of participants. According to the SPIEF organizing committee, the event was attended by over 19,000 participants from 145 countries, including 1,300 \u201cat the level of top leaders\u2019. Others in attendance were UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev, Slovakian PM Peter Pellegrini, PM of Armenia Nikol Pashanyan and the two biggest stars of the event, Russian and Chinese Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin and Xi stand up in St. Petersburg as a united front against Trump,\u201d CNN declared bluntly, summarising the results of the SPIEF-2019 in terms of the China-Russia-USA triangle. Equally clear and sober assessments were expressed shortly after the forum by many other influential press outlets and authoritative commentators. There is a \u201cMoment of Truth,\u201d when everyone simultaneously opens his or her eyes and observes the true state of affairs in the world.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Xi-Putin-SPIEF-2019-Cde\"<\/a>The bonhomie between China\u2019s and Russia\u2019s leaders at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was demonstrable. In a sign of heightened tensions between the United States and Russia and China, Russia\u2019s annual investment gathering was boycotted by the US Ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman. His absence was ascribed to the prevailing environment in Russia for foreign entrepreneurs, typified by the detention of US private equity investor Michael Calvey on allegations of fraud. Conversely, the Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer Huawei signed an agreement with Russia\u2019s principal mobile operator to start 5G networks, in a rebuff to Washington\u2019s attempts to isolate the firm internationally. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping made it clear in St. Petersburg that the tensions with the West had only drawn them closer. The rift with Russia began with Moscow\u2019s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the stand-off in eastern Ukraine that continues. Russia\u2019s tensions with the US and some EU countries stem also from their opposition to the 1,200-km-long Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. U.S. objections draw in part from its eagerness to export liquefied natural gas to Europe, besides thwarting Moscow\u2019s ambition to dominate the region\u2019s energy market. Far more sensitive has been U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s inquiry into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Washington\u2019s blacklisting of Huawei, prohibiting it from selling technology to the U.S. and barring domestic firms from supplying semiconductors to Beijing, falls into a class of its own among international trade disputes.<\/p>\n

Amid these tensions, in St. Petersburg President Xi and President Putin emphasised that bilateral relations were at a historic high, marked by increased diplomatic and strategic cooperation. China participated in Russian military exercises on its eastern border last September, marking a watershed. Moscow and Beijing, hostile rivals of the Cold War era, have for a while been adopting common positions at the UN Security Council on critical international issues. Bilateral relations are also guided by pragmatism. Russia appears realistic about the growing Chinese economic clout in Central Asia, once firmly in its sphere of influence, thanks to China\u2019s massive infrastructure investments under the Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese cooperation would moreover prove critical for Russia\u2019s elaborate plans to exploit the Northern Sea Route along the Arctic as an alternative transportation hub. International sanctions have not been very effective in isolating Russia. European states, notably Germany, recognise the importance of engaging with Russia to contain Mr. Putin\u2019s expansionist aims. Equally, President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica first\u201d policy is compelling potential rivals to make common cause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia-China Bonhomie at St. Petersburg International Economic Forum The 23rd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was held on June 6-8, 2019 with the motto \u2018Creating a Sustainable Development Agenda\u2019. This year\u2019s forum was the largest in terms of a number and composition of participants. According to the SPIEF organizing committee, the event was attended by …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10390,1,10797],"tags":[574,257,9668,1000,1226,2231,610,1161,10115,537,258,8467],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22539"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22544,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22539\/revisions\/22544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}