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American publication Foreign Policy, expressed doubt that Russia is ready to continue to participate in the Chinese initiative of “One belt, one road”, devoting a separate article (translation available on the portal the new York times).

The author, a British journalist Ankur Shah, specializing in relations between Moscow and Beijing, believes that a clear signal about the dying interest of Russia in this project was the refusal of the foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov to participate in a video conference, devoted to prospects of development of this project, held in June.

Instead, this meeting was attended by the Ambassador for special assignments.

Thus, despite the public commitment and words of support to this project by the heads of the two States that are constantly heard at the meetings to discuss the initiative of “One belt” in reality, for its joint implementation almost nothing has been done, writes Foreign Policy. So, at last year’s forum of China 283 signed agreements, only 15 were directly related to Russia.

At the same time, countries continue to implement joint projects, but they also almost does not belong to the initiative “One belt”: the same plant of “Yamal LNG”, in which a few years ago, the silk road Fund acquired a stake of 9.9%, rather, establishes energy partnership between the two countries.

In fairness it should be noted that the discussion of the prospects of “One belt, one road” at the Ministerial level took place in mid-July as part of a telephone conversation between Sergey Lavrov and foreign Minister Wang Yi, But even the Chinese publication Xinhua, reporting on this meeting, wrote that most in this conversation touched on the political questions of interaction of Moscow and Beijing, as well as the need to confront “blatant policy of national priority” which is held by the United States.

the policy is to blame

In an interview with "Газетой.Ru" Professor, school of fmain Oriental studies of the HSE Alexey Maslov explained that the key problem of interaction of Russia and China in the framework of the project "One zone" that Beijing did not fully understand what this initiative is about politics or Commerce.

"Confused by the fact that the initiative "Belt and Road" in fact is not an organization, and therefore China itself full control of how it should look in the end. It turns out that no one can offer their initiatives, because of the "Belt and Road" is not any bodies through which they could make: you either participate or you don't" — throws up his hands Alexei Maslov.

From a political point of view of Moscow, despite the close cooperation with Beijing on numerous issues, promotes the opposite position in the international arena. The fact that vneshnepoliticheskoiKai the concept of Russia does not imply accession to the blocks that she can't control.

It pulls the problem of the lack of any serious investment in the Russian economy from China. According to Andrei Maslov, Moscow is much more interesting to spend the re-industrialization of their territories in the far East, while China sees Russia as a market for its goods and the transport route to transport them to Europe.

"Russia in this sense is not ready to become part of the Chinese project. China is somewhat surprising, since many countries were glad to such investments and signed all the necessary papers," — explains Andrey Maslov.

It is worth noting that not only Russia has become complacent to the project "One belt" due to the unwavering position of China. In an interview with "Газетой.Ru" the scientist reminded that in recent years, a number of countries that have actively collaborated with Beijing on the issue of the initiative, gradually began to move away from it. Among them, Malaysia, Romania and the Czech Republic.

of so go

As for the logistics component of the initiative "One belt, one road" in which Russia should occupy a key position, no serious contradictions between Russia and China is not.

In the beginning of July by train between Europe and China were first shipped goods cross-border e-Commerce: the train passed through the line is the TRANS-Siberian railway, after which consistently delivered the goods to Germany, France, Belgium and other European countries, according to RZD-Partner.

But despite the fact that the delivery of Chinese goods to Europe by land much faster than by the usual sea route, the popularity of this route is still low due to transport costs, says associate Professor of management Institute of business studies Ranepa Emil Martirosyan.

In the comments "Газете.Ru" the expert said that despite the fact that many of the necessary transport routes already established, they are still not able to completely integrate into each other, causing sea route of despatch of the goods remains at 20-30% cheaper.

"Project "Belt" was conceived precisely in order to link these patchwork artery in a single system, which will allow you to implement the most important aspect — through tariff rate — draws attention to Emil Martirosyan. — That is, the shipper will pay once for shipping through the area. And now it turns out that even sending the goods via a ready ground infrastructure, to pay for his travel accounts in each country through which takes place the cargo".

In parallel, the countries continue to work together to build a network of logistics centers modular: they are already working in Harbin and Novosibirsk, and by 2025 year to��must appear 25 such centres.

Their essence is that arrived by road the container you can overload on a train, plane, sea and river cargo transport, which allows significantly reduce the cost of logistics. But to function properly they can also only be the case if you link them in a single system.

At the same time Russia will not have any economic problems in order to upgrade the same TRANS-Siberian railway, certain respondents "Газетой.Ru" experts. Although, it is worth mentioning that recently the state Duma adopted the bill allowing clear-cutting along the roads has caused a serious resonance among inhabitants of the Irkutsk region.

This was stated by MP Michael Shchapov, called the Federation Council and the government to reject the initiative.

But environmental risk is not the only problem from the point of view of modernization of Transsib, warns Alexey Maslov from the higher school of Economics. In his opinion, if Russia will do so only in order to transport Chinese goods to Europe, this is a very dangerous project, because then the country will be in serious dependence on Beijing.

The second problem point is that either way works in two directions, and if the flow of goods from China to Europe to imagine quite easily that will be transported from Europe to China — in addition to small lots of luxury goods — is unclear.

"if Russia will increase the supply of agricultural products to China from the South, the Central regions and of the Altai, then the benefits of this route will be obvious. But to do this, Beijing needs to expand the quota for our country and facilitate obtaining the necessary health certificates", — concluded the expert.