Word: russia
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...Freedom had hit Russia like a great slap, and people were still reeling from the shock,” Irakli Iosebashevili writes of the mood among Muscovites in 1993 in his short story “The Life and Times of a Soviet Capitalist.” The authors of the essays and vignettes collected in “The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain” agree on few things, but on this subject they find common ground: the world changed in 1989, and the peoples of the former Soviet...
...while China needs Russia's vast energy reserves, it can afford to wait a little while. Beijing has already tapped into Central Asia's vast gas reserves. A new pipeline from Turkmenistan is scheduled to begin gas shipments to China in December via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, both gas-rich countries. China also has access to the world's largest natural gas field, the South Pars, which is shared by Iran and Qatar. In June, CNPC purchased a block of the Iran-owned South Pars field after the French energy giant Total walked away from the bid for fear of antagonizing...
...That steady stream of suppliers has seemingly made Russia eager to make deals with its neighbor rather than to lose out to its competitors in the Persian Gulf and the Caspian. Says the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy in Washington, in its research note on Thursday: "Gazprom increasingly has an incentive to lock in a share of the Chinese market, as it sees growing competition from Central Asian suppliers as well as LNG suppliers such as Australia, Qatar and even Papua New Guinea...
...search has a significant effect on how China interacts with the world. "Energy is a big issue for Chinese diplomacy," says Han Hua, an associate professor at Peking University's School of International Studies. "We have to diversify and get energy not just from the Middle East but from Russia. After decades of discussion, this agreement is really important for China's growth." (See pictures of China's infrastructure boom...
...still want to counterbalance American influence, Moscow and Beijing are linked by 21st century economic concerns. "We cannot be as close as we were in the 1950s," says Han. The communist neighbors grew apart starting in 1956, and even after the fall of the Soviet Union, trade between Russia and China remained slow. In recent years it has expanded rapidly, from $10.7 billion in 2001 to $56.9 billion in 2008. "Half of that is energy," says Zweig. "Energy is a very important component of the bilateral trade relationship. In many ways, it is a pillar." These days...