Russia-China gas pipeline deal stalls over what Moscow says Beijing's unreasonable price demands in major blow for Putin (www.reuters.com)

submitted 5 months ago by 0x815@feddit.de to c/news@beehaw.org

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Here is the paywalled article

Russia's attempts to conclude a major gas pipeline deal with China have run aground over what Moscow sees as Beijing's unreasonable demands on price and supply levels, the Financial Times reported on Sunday citing three people familiar with the matter.

China had asked to pay close to Russia's heavily subsidised domestic prices and would only commit to buying a small fraction of the pipeline's planned annual capacity of 50 billion cubic metres of gas according to the report. Russia has been in talks for years about building the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline to carry 50 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year from the Yamal region in northern Russia to China via Mongolia.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said last month that Russia and China expect to a sign a contract "in the near future" on the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline.

top 7 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 23 points 5 months ago

You have no leverage when you only have one remaining economy to sell things to.

Russia is going to be turned into a Chinese vassal state.

[-] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Weeelll, they do still export a lot even to countries that have nominally sanctioned them. Obviously less nowadays than before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but China definitely isn't their only export destination for petrochemicals:

(source for graph)

What might screw Russia over is their reliance on Chinese imports, however. Everything they need for eg. maintaining that oil production – let alone consumer products – has to come from somewhere, mostly either from dodging sanctions (making it more expensive and slower) or from China

[-] coffeetest@beehaw.org 5 points 5 months ago

I assume the bigger problem is the switch to a wartime economy that has no good outcome. All that production is not going toward future productivity, in fact, quite the opposite. I am no expert in this but that's my view.

[-] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Oh yes absolutely, I meant it more as in what'd be likely to make Russia a "vassal state" to China

[-] coffeetest@beehaw.org 4 points 5 months ago

Oh, right, missed the context.

I don't know if China can afford to cut off Russia but it looks like they control enough of that income pie that it's a very effective threat. Maybe not full control “vassal state” but it's a pretty strong position for negotiations and how's that going to get weaker over time? Then again I've heard China's economy isn't that great right now.

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 10 points 5 months ago

News flash: China doesn't pay fair wages, and they don't like unions.

[-] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 6 points 5 months ago

When you’re Winnie The Pooh, everything looks like a pot of honey

this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024

53 points (100.0% liked)

World News

22057 readers

98 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

For US News, see the US News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS