Posts tagged ‘russian president vladimir putin’

  |  
19/12/2014

Xi Jinping Wins the Popularity Contest – Businessweek

A recent survey on the popularity of global leaders is providing rich fodder for the Communist Party of China’s propaganda machine. The study, which canvassed some 26,000 people in 30 countries on their attitudes toward 10 world leaders, shows President Xi Jinping was rated higher by the people of China than any other leader in the survey was rated by the people of his or her respective country.

Chinese President Xi Jinping

“Chinese President Xi Jinping was the highest-rated world leader in many fields,” China Daily reported on Wednesday, commenting on the study (PDF), which was published by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and carried out by Japanese research firm GMO. “Chinese respondents showed the highest confidence in regards to how their leader handled domestic and international affairs.”

Among the national rankings, where people rate their own leader, Xi averaged 9 out of 10, higher than any other head of state, with 94.8 percent of Chinese expressing confidence about how he handles domestic affairs and 93.8 percent saying the same about international affairs.

Xi was followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin (8.7), Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (8.6), South African President Jacob Zuma (7), and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (6.7). U.S. President Barack Obama came in seventh place, with only a 6.2 ranking. Just 51.7 percent of Americans were confident about Obama’s handling of domestic affairs, while 49.1 percent said the same regarding international affairs.

But while Xi’s high popularity is getting lots of attention in China’s party-controlled press, the possible reasons behind it are not. Leaders in countries that hold a high degree of state control over the media would naturally rate higher, the Harvard study says, a conclusion ignored by China Daily and other Chinese publications.

via Xi Jinping Wins the Popularity Conest – Businessweek.

Posted in Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
28/10/2014

Putin Turns to China as Russia’s Economy Is Weakened by Sanctions – Businessweek

Defying the U.S. and Europe is forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to aid his biggest rival to the east. To avert a recession, Russia is turning to China for investment, granting it once restricted access to raw materials and advanced weapons, say two people involved in planning Kremlin policy who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. Russia’s growing dependence on China, with which it spent decades battling for control over global communism, may end up strengthening its neighbor’s position in the Pacific. With the ruble near a record low and foreign investment disappearing, luring Chinese cash also may deepen Russia’s reliance on natural resources and derail efforts to diversify the economy.

“Now that Putin has turned away from the West and toward the East, China is drawing maximum profit from Russian necessity,” says Masha Lipman, an independent political analyst in Moscow who co-authored a study on Putin with former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul. China is wasting no time filling the void created by the closing of U.S. and European debt markets to Russia’s largest borrowers. A delegation led by Premier Li Keqiang signed a package of deals on Oct. 13 in Moscow. Among them were an agreement to swap $25 billion in Chinese yuan for Russian rubles over three years, a treaty to protect companies operating in Russia and China from having their profits taxed twice, and cooperation on satellite-navigation systems and high-speed rail. To promote trade, Export-Import Bank of China agreed to provide credit lines to state-owned VTB Group and Vnesheconombank, Russia’s development bank, as well as a trade finance deal with Russian Agricultural Bank.

Russia’s economy is more vulnerable than it’s been since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Unlike then, Russians are united in support of their leader, and with $455 billion in foreign currency and gold reserves, the country isn’t broke, according to Lipman. “The economy was much worse then, but Russia was in a much better position geopolitically because it had the support of the U.S. and Europe,” she says. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t respond to requests for comment.

via Putin Turns to China as Russia’s Economy Is Weakened by Sanctions – Businessweek.

Related articles

Posted in China alert, Diplomacy, Economics, GeoPolitics, oil & gas, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
26/03/2014

Putin’s Shame: Russia Is Becoming China’s Junior Partner – Businessweek

Russian President Vladimir Putin professes not to care about being ejected—temporarily, at least—from the Group of Eight community over his country’s seizure of Crimea. He says Russia has plenty of other friends in the world. One of them is China, the world’s emerging Communist superpower. Diplomatic and trade relations between Russia and China have strengthened notably over the last couple of decades. Bloomberg News reports today that the “Crimean crisis is poised to reshape the politics of oil by accelerating Russia’s drive to send more barrels to China, leaving Europe with pricier imports and boosting U.S. dependence on fuel from the Middle East.”

From left: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and South African President Jacob Zuma at the G-20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Sept. 5, 2013

Notice, though, that what Russia is selling to China is oil—not, say, high-tech machinery. In what must be a source of great embarrassment to Putin, Russia has gone from being China’s tutor and guide to being a junior partner whose main value is as a source for raw materials. Look at these two charts, which I put together today using data from the United Nations’ Comtrade database.

The first shows Russian exports to China in 2000. Exports of what the UN calls mineral fuels, oils, distillation products, etc.—mainly oil—constituted 7 percent of total Chinese exports to Russia.

via Putin’s Shame: Russia Is Becoming China’s Junior Partner – Businessweek.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Posted in China alert, Economics, GeoPolitics, Politics | 3 Comments »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
10/09/2013

Russia to invest $1 billion in rare earths to cut dependence on China

Reuters: “Russia will invest $1 billion in rare earths production by 2018 in a bid to become less dependent on China, which controls more than 90 percent of global supply of the elements used in sectors including defense, telecommunications and renewable energy.

A labourer operates a bulldozer at a site of a rare earth metals mine at Nancheng county, Jiangxi province March 14, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer

The United States, Japan and the European Union have complained to the World Trade Organization about China’s efforts to control the sector, saying China is trying to use its stranglehold over supply to drive up prices and gain a competitive advantage.

Rostec and IST group, an investment company belonging to Russian tycoon Alexander Nesis, have agreed to invest $1 billion in rare earths production by 2018, they said in a statement on Tuesday.

Rostec aims to cover Russian demand for these raw materials by 2017, the company added.

“The (Russian) President (Vladimir Putin) and the government have set a task to expand rare earths production as Russia’s stocks are almost depleted,” a source in state industrial and defense conglomerate Rostec told Reuters on Tuesday.

“Stocks need to be replenished as the main producer, China, has increased prices sharply,” the source said.

TriArkMining, a joint venture (JV) between Rostec and IST, has won the right to acquire 82,653 tonnes (1.1023 tons) of monazite concentrate, stored in warehouses of state-owned Uralmonatsit in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia’s Urals.

The JV plans to extract about 40,000 tonnes of rare earths from the monazite concentrate stored in the warehouses over the course of seven or eight years starting from 2015, the companies said.

The stock is rich in heavy rare earths, such as dysprosium and terbium, crucial for high-power magnets needed by the auto, defense and clean energy industries.

Heavy rare earths are scarcer than cerium and other light rare earths, making them much more valuable.

Russia consumes about 1,500 tonnes of rare earths per year and annual demand is expected to reach 6,000 tonnes by 2020, Rostec said.

The company, which has eight firms producing a wide range of defense products, sees rare earths as a strategic raw material.

China will cap rare earth production at 93,800 tonnes for 2013 as part of efforts to rein in unlicensed production in the sector, it said last week.”

via Russia to invest $1 billion in rare earths to cut dependence on China | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, Economics, GeoPolitics, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
  |  
CCChang

Law of Unintended Consequences

continuously updated blog about China & India

ChiaHou's Book Reviews

continuously updated blog about China & India

What's wrong with the world; and its economy

continuously updated blog about China & India