The Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership starts to get serious!

t2contra said:

China's mega-farm… for 100,000 cows: World's biggest dairy being built to supply Russian demand after Moscow boycotted EU exports

Farm in Mudanjiang City will have 60,000 more cows than current biggest
Russia wants milk as it's boycotting EU countries' milk and dairy exports
It will be 50 times bigger than the UK's biggest, which has 2,000 cows

100,000-cow-power dairy farm in China to feed Russian market

Updated: 2015-07-09 11:14

China Daily USA

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Russian Agriculture is prime investment opportunities for economic, political, and security reasons. This is part of a larger irreversible trend,

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By Staff Writer | May 9, 2015
he Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) and the People’s Government of Heilongjiang province, plans to launch a specialist US$2 billion fund targeting investments in agricultural projects in Russia and China, according to

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issued by RDIF.

The investment fund is part of an agreement between the two countries to increase cooperation in agriculture, including farming, land management, customs procedures, food logistics and sales.

The signing ceremony was held as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia.

The countries are also considering creating an experimental agricultural free trade zone between the Heilongjiang province and the Amur Region.

This free trade zone will use the direct exchange rate between the Russian Rouble and China's RMB, and will support the implementation of incentives for Russian and Chinese high-tech agricultural businesses.

"The specialist US$2 billion fund will motivate Sino-Russia cooperation in agriculture, and accelerate forming new competitive advantages," says Kang
Hanqing, director of Heilongjiang Provincial Government Office.

Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) is a private equity fund established by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and China Investment Corporation (CIC).

RCIF are most focused on cross-border transactions, as well as investment opportunities across a broad range of sectors to facilitate both countries’ the structural reforms and economic efficiency.

Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) was established in 2011 to make equity co-investments, primarily in Russia alongside reputable international financial and strategic investors.

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and it is not just China seeing this opportunity.

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Saudi Arabia plans investing up to $ 10 billion in projects in Russia
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) plans investing up to $ 10 billion in infrastructure and agricultural projects in Russia in partnership with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriyev, RDIF director told TASS.

“That’s a token transaction, one of the largest transactions in the realm of sovereign funds,” Dmitriyev said. “These monies will be channelled to the farming sector, agriculture, healthcare, logistics, retail trade, and real estate.’

The agreement between the two funds came about as a result of a visit to Russia by the heir to the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Defence Minister of Saudi Arabia, who attended the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June.

The agreement between Saudi PIF and RDIF signals a reloading of economic relations between Russia and Saudi Arabia, Dmitriyev told TASS.

“The potential of relations between the two countries is huge,” he said.

Saudi Arabia is a traditional partner and ally of the U.S. in the Middle East and the volume of its economic cooperation with Russia was small enough until recently. Also, the Saudi Kingdom is the world’s largest exporter of crude oil and it occupies the leading positions in OPEC.



The governments of countries exporting oil and other natural resources set up sovereign funds to keep up and invest their revenues. RDIP is already cooperating with a number of sovereign funds in the Middle East.

The Saudi government set up RIF in 1971 to invest in strategic projects.

The aforementioned amount of $ 10 billion will be invested over a period of four to five years, and the first seven deals have receive preliminary endorsement, and ten or so investments will be made before the end of this year, Kirill Dmitriyev said. He also admitted a possibility of investing the monies in third countries.

Dmitriyev said other funds were present in a number of endorsed transactions. New development institutes, like China’s Silk Road Fund might also join the projects in which PIF was going to invest.

“RDIP is integrated with leading investment foundations in the world,” he said. “We should do large-scale investment together.”

RDIP has signed an agreement on partnership with the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) on bringing the Russian companies to the Saudi market.

“We believe there are unique opportunities in aircraft manufacturing and other sectors there,” Dmitriyev said. “We’ll be supporting our companies with investments as they tread the Saudi market.”.

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Russia's Relationship With China Is Growing Despite Setbacks
What are the strategic implications of Moscow and Beijing working closely together in a sensitive domain?

by
Russia has closed major border crossings with China across the Far East due to the rapid spread of coronavirus. That constitutes a significant blow to a trading relationship that had only just begun to fully blossom. The closures come just as new auto and rail bridges spanning the Amur River are finally completion.

The primary line of debate among Russia-China relations analysts is whether the “rapprochement” is robust and tending toward even a genuine alliance or whether it is weak and has little to show for decades of cooperation other than a few rhetorical flourishes. After all, the skeptics note, if this bilateral relationship is so robust, then why did it take so long to get those bridges built?

The China-Russia trading relationship does indeed remain underdeveloped and will evidently face additional headwinds in the near future (along with all of China’s trading relationships, so it seems). But of security ties can hardly be disputed, especially if one takes the long view. Could China have fought the United States to a stalemate in the Korean War without Soviet military assistance? Not a chance. More recently, Russia’s sale of high-tech air and naval weaponry during the 1990s and 2000s created a solid foundation for today’s muscle-bound dragon with both claws (DF-26) and sharp fangs (e.g. YJ-18). But will it go further?
A tantalizing hint was offered by Russian president Vladimir Putin at the Valdai Conference in early October 2019. During his remarks, he dropped the following bombshell: “I probably won’t open a big secret. It’ll become clear anyhow. We are now helping our Chinese partners to create a missile attack warning system. This is a very serious thing, which will increase the defense capability of the People's Republic of China in a fundamental way. Because now only the USA and Russia have such a system [Большой тайны, наверно, не открою. Все равно это станет ясно. Мы сейчас помогаем нашим китайским партнерам создать систему СПРН – систему предупреждения о ракетном нападении. Это очень серьезная вещь, которая капитальным, кардинальным образом повысит обороноспособность Китайской Народной Республики. Потому что сейчас такую систему имеют только США и Россия].” This seemingly major step forward in Russia-China military cooperation demands greater scrutiny. It also provides an interesting opportunity to gauge opinion among Russian strategists regarding the long-term viability of a close military partnership with the Middle Kingdom.

One impressively comprehensive Russian begins by stating that “Russia had to look for various options for answering Washington’s actions” to withdraw from the INF Treaty. The same article notes somewhat ominously that the United States is preparing in case of “accidental nuclear war with Russia.” Employing the Russian acronym “SPRN” literally “warning systems against rocket attack [системы предупреждения о ракетном нападении]” for early warning system, this assessment also makes the important point that Russia’s SPRN has only recently completed a long process of upgrades meant to fill “gaps [разрывы]” caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, when key facilities for early warning were located in non-Russian parts of the USSR.

The article quotes one Moscow defense expert, Igor Korotchenko [Игор Коротченко], as offering the following assessment: “This is really a huge contribution of Russia to strategic stability, since China receives a powerful tool in order not to become a victim of the first disarming blow from the United States.” Another Russian expert, Konstantin Sivkov [Константин Сивков], maintained that this move would enhance “global stability” but also articulated some concern with respect to Russia’s long-term interests. “When China has at its disposal all the technologies that Russia has at its disposal, or creates similar ones, it will cease to need Russia as a defender,” Sivkov said. “And this could adversely affect Russian-Chinese relations.” Korotchenko, however, is more bullish on the long-term prospects for the defense relationship with Beijing. He underlined the commercial prospects for Russian companies, and added that the early warning initiative will “contribute to the further rapprochement of Russia and China, building a common security policy [поспособствует дальнейшему сближению России и Китая, выстраиванию общей политики в области безопасности].”

That’s an interesting disagreement among Russian security specialists, for sure, but another rather significant observation regarding these developments was offered in this same article by the former deputy commander of Russia’s air defense command, Alexander Luzan [Александр Лузан]. He contends that Russia will benefit from the enhanced cooperation with Beijing on an early warning. Luzan explains that the ground components of Russia’s SPRN are comprised of []long range “Voronezh” [Воронеж] radars that can see out four thousand to six thousand kilometers to detect ICBM launches. Short-range “Sunflower [Подсолнухи]” radars are more suitable for warning of short-range launches, but also offer ship-detection capabilities. Directly reflecting on operational advantages for the Russian military, Luzan observes: “Vladivostok and Primorye are protected here, but there is nothing ‘in depth.’ We once tried to deploy our facilities in Mongolia, but it didn’t work out very well. Therefore, if the Chinese close this ‘tongue,’ it will be very important for Russia [Владивосток и Приморье у нас защищены, а ‘в глубину’ там ничего нет. Мы когда-то в Монголии пытались разместить свои комплексы, но не очень получилось. Потому если китайцы этот ‘язычок’ закроют, то для России это будет очень важно].” Again citing this Russian general, the article states that “a unified information space is created and data is exchanged with Chinese radars, [and therefore] ‘the security of our country from the east will be even better.’”

Such interpretations are generally in accord with the of Vladimir Petrovsky [Владимир Петровский,], a senior fellow and military specialist at Moscow’s Institute of the Far East of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This analyst writes that many believe that Putin’s announcement of this strategic cooperation initiative at Valdai signals that “the military alliance between Russia and China . . . has finally become real.” Petrovsky also notes that other specialists have begun to speculate on the meaning of a “retaliatory strike” under such circumstances, wherein the early warning is relayed by a third country.

He quotes the Russian president (speaking at Valdai) further on the matter of motives for new missile deployments in the Asia-Pacific region: “we suddenly heard from the American military that the first step in this direction would be taken just in Asia. But that step also impacts on us, because we need to understand: where in Asia, will Russian territory be endangered or not? By the way, it’s immediately clear what was the root cause of the exit: not Russia and not mythical violations of the [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty by us. If they are going to put [U.S. missiles] in Asia, then Asia is the primary reason for withdrawing from this Treaty [вдруг услышали от американских военных, что первый шаг в этом направлении будет сделан как раз в Азии. Но он и нас затрагивает, потому что надо понять: где в Азии, будет доставать это российскую территорию или нет? Кстати говоря, сразу понятно, что было первопричиной выхода: не Россия и не мифические нарушения нами Договора. Если они собираются ставить в Азии, то Азия и является первопричиной выхода из этого Договора].”

In other words, Putin’s announcement of this initiative to accelerate military cooperation with China is intended, in part, as a response to the United States' move to exit the INF accord.
Strongly hinting that Beijing might well gain access to Russian early-warning radars based in the Arctic, Petrovsky observes, “Taking into account geography, it is quite possible to develop protocols for the exchange of data between national SPRN.” He further contends that this early warning cooperation will be “mutually beneficial and not without compensation [эта помощь—взаимовыгодная и небезвозмездная].” This military expert explains that China still can learn from Russian radar proficiency, but also implies that the Russian side may gain some advantages from China’s evident prowess in microelectronics, for example. Moreover, he suggests, “a possible Chinese satellite constellation could be a good addition to Russian orbital facilities.” Still, Petrovsky concludes that Russia and China “are not creating a military-political alliance. It is rather a matter of coordinating the military policies.” Playing down the significance of this new initiative, this specialist also notes that Russia and China have been holding annual ballistic missile defense command and staff exercises for about a decade already.

Hendrik_2000 said:

A tantalizing hint was offered by Russian president Vladimir Putin at the Valdai Conference in early October 2019. During his remarks, he dropped the following bombshell: “I probably won’t open a big secret. It’ll become clear anyhow. We are now helping our Chinese partners to create a missile attack warning system. This is a very serious thing, which will increase the defense capability of the People's Republic of China in a fundamental way. Because now only the USA and Russia have such a system [Большой тайны, наверно, не открою. Все равно это станет ясно. Мы сейчас помогаем нашим китайским партнерам создать систему СПРН – систему предупреждения о ракетном нападении. Это очень серьезная вещь, которая капитальным, кардинальным образом повысит обороноспособность Китайской Народной Республики. Потому что сейчас такую систему имеют только США и Россия].” This seemingly major step forward in Russia-China military cooperation demands greater scrutiny. It also provides an interesting opportunity to gauge opinion among Russian strategists regarding the long-term viability of a close military partnership with the Middle Kingdom.

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On a related note: