China and Russia have held several rounds of discussions on the construction of the "Power of Siberia 2" gas pipeline, including Putin's visit to China last month, which mentioned that China and Russia are considering building an oil pipeline "in the same corridor", which represents the vision of both China and Russia to improve the efficiency of the "Siberia 2" project.
However, according to the revelations of the British media, recently the "Siberia-2" project has gone wrong again? This matter has been full of twists and turns, has Putin's hope been disappointed again?
On June 3, the Financial Times broke the news that the Kremlin believes that China and Russia have not yet reached an agreement on the price issue of the "Siberia 2" cooperation project. That is, there was no agreement on the price, and Moscow felt that China gave too little money.
A study from Columbia University last month showed that they looked at Chinese and Russian customs data from 2019 to 2021 and found that the price of natural gas paid by China averaged $4.4 per MMBtu. This is two times lower than the price of Russian gas exports to Europe and the price paid by China to Myanmar during the same period.
Moscow believes that the Siberia-2 gas pipeline project is too large, and it will not make much money at all due to the cost of construction and later maintenance. Even they are not sure how many cubic meters of gas the pipeline will buy, so in the final analysis, it is a matter of money.
As early as 2019, after the "Power of Siberia" project officially connected China and Russia to start gas transmission, the Russian side tasted the benefits and immediately proposed the "Power of Siberia 2" project to the Chinese side. However, the Siberia-2 project was planned to pass through Mongolia, which was not in China's interests, so the project was put on hold.
Later, in 2021, Russia pulled Mongolia and invited China to participate in this trilateral cooperation project of "China, Russia and Mongolia", which was of some interest to China at that time with the purpose of strengthening the mutual benefit of China, Russia and Mongolia and establishing more opportunities for mutual exchanges. Until last year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Novak said that China and Russia reached an agreement in principle on the "Siberia-2". Novak envisages the project to reach 50 billion cubic meters per year and be operational in 2033.
If, according to Novak's prediction, Russia wants to bet one-third of China's total annual natural gas imports on the "Siberia 2" gas pipeline project, this is not a small amount, and it is enough to see Russia's ambitions.
From Russia's point of view, we can also understand their eagerness to inject the external economy into the domestic market, after all, the Russian-Ukrainian war is not over yet, and even if it is over, the United States and Europe cannot easily admit defeat, and the European war may still have to start. In this case, after the economy was blocked by the United States and the West in an all-round way, natural gas was also restricted from being transported to Europe, and the current situation of the Russian economy continued to be sluggish, so the treasure was put on China.
However, this is not an excuse for China to be the "wronged leader", and in the most difficult time for Russia, it is China's full support to pull the Sino-Russian trade volume to a new height, so that the Russian economy can operate urgently and urgently.
However, on the Siberia-2 project, the Chinese side has its own concerns.
The first point is that the hope for a low price is the legitimate demand of every buyer, after all, no one's money is blown by the wind.
Second, the project passes through Mongolia, which is against China's will and does not conform to China's interests. In recent years, Mongolia has adhered to the foreign policy of the so-called "third neighbor" quite pro-American, not to mention the large scale of the project and the considerable investment cost, once Mongolia gets stuck, China's interests will suffer unpredictable losses.
Third, China has never blindly relied on one country for energy imports, and Russia's desire to rely on this pipeline to account for one-third of China's annual natural gas imports is not in line with China's philosophy.
In the face of the above risks, China should naturally be cautious. China and Russia should understand each other's needs and not blindly look at their own interests. Of course, the final conclusion has not yet been made at this time, and China and Russia need to conduct several rounds of discussions on the project to explore a reasonable plan.
Since the report was revealed by Britain, Britain will inevitably carry private goods, that is, it hopes that China and Russia will have suspicions because of this, and the rupture of Sino-Russian relations is something that the United States and Britain cannot hope to see. Therefore, both China and Russia know that one yard is one yard, and China and Russia are both anti-hegemonic camps, and they still have to cooperate in the international community. What's more, without China, it is impossible for Russia to fight a war without worries in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and Russia knows this, so it is even more impossible to elevate differences in cooperation to the relationship between major powers.
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Resources:
The Sino-Russian "Power of Siberia 2" gas pipeline project blocked? Foreign Ministry Response - Straits Net
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