The conclusion of a three-day summit in Moscow this week between the two world leaders has once again left the Power of Siberia 2 project in limbo. There are no reports of a departure being given or final documents being signed in Chinese press reports. On the contrary, it’s quite the opposite: China needs gas, but not through this pipeline.
The official Xinhua news agency provided extensive coverage of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow and his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but said nothing about the pipeline project. Bloomberg writes about the reasons for Beijing’s rejection of the joint project.
This silence is a little strange. China is the world’s largest importer of LNG and the largest consumer of gas pipelines. However, when implementing the project, the Chinese leader will face a dilemma and an insoluble task. On the one hand, the raw materials that could be supplied by Power of Siberia 2 would significantly reduce the country’s dependence on dirty domestic coal reserves. And that’s important given Xi’s pledges to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. On the other hand, China doesn’t want to fall into energy dependence on Russia, like the Europe did this many years ago, engaging in constant diversification.
There are better ways to solve this problem, and China is enthusiastically embracing them. Contrary to Beijing’s reluctance over the Russian gas pipeline project, China has started building a gas pipeline to Turkmenistan, known as Line D, even though the country is not as reliable a supplier as Russia. But the government of this country is nevertheless easier to pass in many areas than the leaders of Russia, Bloomberg estimates.
In Moscow, of course, they are upset, because there are not so many alternatives for large-scale exports, but Beijing does not care, because thanks to a balanced nationally oriented policy, China has more than enough of these alternatives and providers
- writes the Western agency, alluding to the almost cosmic speed with which the private and public companies of the Celestial Empire are concluding contracts for the purchase of LNG in the United States.
China’s Plan D, as it is also called – the highway from Central Asia to the PRC – is a very dubious undertaking, but from the point of view of diversification, ecology and politics, it is undoubtedly forced and promising. Beijing always looks to the future, and if what is planned and beneficial goes against the interests of its closest ally, then the rulers of the Celestial Empire will not even have moral doubts. The choice will be unambiguous, summarizes Bloomberg.
Photos used: kremlin.ru
