Putin eyes closer partnership with China

Russian President Vladimir Putin is interviewed by Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao in St. Petersburg on June 17. BAI XUEQI/XINHUA

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that his country and China are diversifying trade and exploring new cooperation areas in joint pursuit of a more productive partnership amid a challenging global landscape.

"We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other－by this I mean we keep each other's interests in mind," Putin said in an hourlong exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao in St Petersburg.

Recalling that the two countries established a strategic partnership two decades ago and signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation 15 years ago, Putin said mutual trust between them has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation.

The leaders of the two countries meet regularly now, and more than 20 intergovernmental mechanisms are in place, Putin said.

Putin is scheduled to make a state visit to China on Saturday, his fourth trip to China since President Xi Jinping took office in 2013.

In a telling sign of the high frequency of bilateral top-level contact, Putin will meet Xi over the weekend for the second time in four days. Both are now in Tashkent for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. They are also both poised to attend this year's Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou in September.

Acknowledging that the two countries cannot always quickly reach an agreement on complicated issues, Putin stressed that they can make the agreements serve the common purpose of promoting bilateral cooperation.

"So we always find a solution," he told Cai.

Touching on one of those complicated issues, the recent decline in bilateral trade value, Putin said it is merely a temporary downtick resulting from the current market prices of certain commodities and differences in exchange rates against the backdrop of global economic woes.

"The most important task in bilateral relations is bringing diversities and higher quality to trade relations, particularly boosting cooperation in high-tech areas," he said, noting that the two countries have taken concrete measures to optimize their trade structure.

While citing fruitful cooperation in aerospace and nuclear power, Putin said Russia is also closely following the construction of a high-speed railway between Moscow and Kazan.

The 770-km track, now under Russia-China joint construction, is designed for bullet trains capable of running at up to 400 km/h. It is expected to cut the travel time between Moscow and Kazan from the current 12 hours to three and a half.

The project "may very well be only the beginning of our broad cooperation in infrastructure," said Putin.

China-Russia cooperation is also gaining momentum and a new dimension through the Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by Xi, comprising the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road and aiming to pursue common development along the ancient trade routes linking Asia with Europe and Africa.

The Belt, which runs through Central Asia, is a "very well-timed and appealing" vision that "holds great potential", a cheerful Putin commented in the interview, which was conducted on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.