Xi, Putin to discuss links among region’s initiatives
and Road with Russia’s concept of a grand Eurasian passage connecting the region’s countries and the development of the Eurasian Economic Union, Denisov said.
“The leaders will continue to talk about ways to integrate Eurasian countries and coordination between the two initiatives, as well as the cooperation under the framework of such coordination.”
In April, when Putin met at the Kremlin with Li Zhanshu, director of the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, he said Russia will respond more actively to the Belt and Road Initiative. He also said he was looking forward to meeting with Xi and participating in the initiative’s forum in Beijing.
“The meet will be the first one between the leaders in 2017,” Denisov said, “and they will have further communication next month during the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Kazakhstan.”
Xi and Putin will talk about multiple ways in which the two countries can cooperate, as well as international issues, but he wouldn’t say which specific issues are on their agenda.
Other senior Russian government officials are also participating in the Belt and Road forum, including Foreign Min- ister Sergey Lavrov.
“Many top executives from Russian companies are coming as well,” Denisov said. “Some of them arrived in Beijing a few days ago, and have already started to talk with their (Chinese) partners, so maybe new agreements will be reached by these companies before the two presidents meet.”
Tian Chunsheng, an expert on Russian affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China and Russia have been enhancing economic ties for years, and now those ties are quite well established.
Vladimir Petrovsky, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said there is still great potential for the growth of Sino-Russian cooperation. Petrovsky is chief of research on China-Russian relations at the academy’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies.
“Regional and border cooperation, for instance, are playing a more important role in Sino-Russian ties, and the two states need to continue to explore the potential of tourism, business and trade in the border areas.”
The leaders will continue to talk about ways to integrate Eurasian countries and coordination between the two initiatives.” Andrey Denisov, Russia’s ambassador to China