Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) left yesterday on an official trip to Moscow, and state media quoted him as saying China wants trade with Russia to quadruple to up to US$80 billion a year by the year 2010.
The trip reflects the strategic importance Beijing places on ties with its former Cold War rival.
Hu said the two countries should promote cooperation in trade, energy, military affairs and science and technology, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
It said he made the comments in interviews last week with Russian media in Beijing.
The two governments have developed what they call a strategic partnership since the 1991 Soviet breakup, but trade and financial ties are small.
China is the biggest foreign buyer of Russian arms and is eager to gain access to Russian oil and gas to fuel its booming economy.
Hu and Putin were to sign a declaration affirming their nations' call for respecting international law and establishing a stronger UN role internationally, according to a Kremlin official.
The two governments say they want a "multipolar world," a reference to their opposition to US domination of international affairs.
Some Russian officials and lawmakers have accused the US of instigating regime change in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Ukraine and, most recently, Kyrgyzstan, over the past 18 months -- a claim the US administration has denied.
Hu also will visit Kazakhstan to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The regional security grouping led by Russia and China also includes the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
China and Russia have been concerned about an increased US influence in Central Asia since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which have resulted in the deployment of US troops in the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan for carrying out operations in neighboring Afghanistan.
Moscow and Beijing are due to hold their first joint military maneuvers, an exercise seen by many observers as Russia's response to the cooling of relations with the US and other Western nations. China has spent billions of dollars on Russian fighters, missiles, submarines and destroyers in an effort to modernize its arsenal and back up frequent threats to attack Taiwan.
Putin visited China last October and the two governments settled the last of their decades-old border disputes.
China also has endorsed Moscow's bid to join the WTO.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
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A South Korean judge who last week more than doubled former South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee’s prison sentence was found dead yesterday, police said. Shin Jong-o was found unconscious at about 1am at the Seoul High Court building, an investigator at the Seocho District Police Station in Seoul said. Shin was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, he said. “There is no sign of foul play in the death,” the investigator added. Local media reported that Shin had left a suicide note, but the investigator said there was none. On Tuesday last week, Shin presided over 53-year-old Kim’s appeal trial, finding her guilty
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