China News Service, Moscow, February 24th. On February 23rd, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui accepted an exclusive interview with Russia's Interfax news agency on issues related to Sino-Russian cooperation.
Zhang Hanhui said that on the occasion of the Spring Festival this year, President Putin visited China at the invitation of President Xi Jinping and attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
The two heads of state held their first offline meeting in more than two years to realize the "Winter Olympics Covenant" and hold the "New Year's Meeting" to lay out the layout for Sino-Russian relations in the post-epidemic era.
During the talks, the two heads of state had an in-depth and full exchange of views on Sino-Russian relations and a series of major issues related to international strategic security and stability, and reached broad consensus. The Joint Statement of China and Russia focuses on the common positions of China and Russia in terms of democracy, development, security and order, and reflects the highly consistent positions of the two countries on major international issues.
China and Russia share broad consensus and interests on global security governance, and have always advocated the realization of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security.
The "Joint Statement" issued this time clearly pointed out that the two sides oppose the continued expansion of NATO, and call on NATO to abandon the ideology of the Cold War, respect the sovereignty, security, interests and diversity of civilizations, history and culture of other countries, and view the peaceful development of other countries in an objective and fair manner.
China understands and supports the proposals put forward by Russia to build a legally binding long-term security guarantee for Europe.
China and Russia have always maintained high-level strategic coordination in Asia-Pacific affairs.
Both sides are opposed to building a closed alliance system and creating camp confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region, are highly vigilant about the "Indo-Pacific strategy" promoted by the United States, and are seriously concerned about the establishment of a "trilateral security partnership" (AUKUS) between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
China and Russia will continue to play a strong guarantor role in maintaining world peace and tranquility.
Zhang Hanhui pointed out that expanding the scale of local currency settlement is one of the main directions for deepening financial cooperation between China and Russia.
The Russian government has expanded the use of renminbi in local currency settlements, purchasing renminbi-denominated financial products and investing in reserve currencies. The renminbi’s share in Sino-Russian bilateral trade settlement has increased from 3.1% in 2014 to 17.5% in 2020.
This shows that the renminbi has its own advantages and potential for use in the Russian market, and also shows that China and Russia have made positive progress in promoting the diversification of bilateral trade settlement, and the role of the local currency as a means of payment is gradually increasing.
At present, the oil and gas purchase and sales contracts between the two parties are mainly denominated in foreign currencies. We are happy to see that companies from both parties are actively studying the feasibility of using RMB for settlement.
Zhang Hanhui said that from January to November last year, China imported about 72.4 million tons of crude oil from Russia, and Russia continued to be China's second largest crude oil importer.
On February 4 this year, CNPC and Rosneft signed a supplementary agreement on the purchase and sale of crude oil to ensure the supply of oil to refineries in western China, and will supply an additional 100 million tons of crude oil to China.
Regarding the "Oriental Petroleum" project and the Tianjin refinery project, companies from the two countries are discussing and discussing to promote cooperation.
On February 3 this year, CNPC and Gazprom signed a Sino-Russian Far East natural gas purchase and sale agreement, which became another important achievement between China and Russia in pipeline natural gas trade following the commissioning of the China-Russia eastern natural gas pipeline in 2019. Cooperation results.
Zhang Hanhui said that as responsible aerospace powers, China and Russia jointly abide by the UN Treaty on Principles Concerning the Exploration and Utilization of Activities in Inner and Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, and coordinate to promote outer space governance. Bilateral mechanisms led by the Space Subcommittee and multilateral mechanisms such as the BRICS countries have carried out extensive and fruitful cooperation in the fields of lunar and deep space exploration, manned spaceflight, satellite navigation, earth observation, space technology and applications.
Space cooperation has become an important part of the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination between China and Russia in the new era, with broad space for cooperation and good development prospects.
Under the strategic guidance of the leaders of the two countries, China-Russia space cooperation is now ushering in a new stage of vigorous development in fields such as the construction of lunar scientific research stations.
On March 9, 2021, China and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the construction of an international lunar scientific research station.
On April 23, the China National Space Administration and Roscosmos issued the "Joint Statement on Cooperation in the Construction of an International Lunar Scientific Research Station", and on June 16 jointly released the roadmap for the construction of an international lunar scientific research station.
Regarding the intergovernmental cooperation agreement between China and Russia in establishing a lunar scientific research station, the two sides have basically reached a consensus on the text of the agreement, and it is expected to be signed as soon as possible this year.
The two countries will solidly formulate and implement plans for the construction of an international lunar scientific research station, and attract a wide range of international partners to participate in the principle of openness.
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