On May 21, 2014, after a marathon negotiating session in Shanghai, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, finally put pen to paper on a $400 billion natural-gas deal widely heralded as the kickstart to Russia’s own pivot to Asia. One year later, though, it’s far from clear that strategic shift is genuinely taking shape.
Despite plenty of smiles and a raft of bilateral economic pacts signed on the sidelines of Russia’s big World War II victory parade this weekend in Moscow, the two countries still seem far from cementing a full-blown rapprochement. Russia’s frosty relations with the …read more
Source: Foreign Policy
