ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, May 23 (Agencies): More and more Russians have a positive attitude toward China because, under Western sanctions, they see the great potential of the economic partnership between the two countries, experts said.
Winning 33 per cent of support, China topped a list of countries Russians view as the most necessary and valuable partner, according to a recent survey conducted by Russian polling institute Public Opinion Foundation. Nearly half of the respondents said cooperation with China is now the most important for the Russian economy.
"In general, of course, there is a positive trend in the attitude of ordinary Russians toward China," said Alexei Maslov, head of the Asian Studies Department at the Russian Higher School of Economics, National Research University.
This is reflected not only in polls but also in Russians' growing interest in the Chinese culture, the Chinese language and joint business operations, he said.
Beneficial economic and trade cooperation with China has particularly enhanced the ordinary Russians' positive impression of China as they believe China can be a large buyer of Russian agricultural and energy products as well as a co-investor in major infrastructure projects in Russia. "Therefore, China is perceived not as an assistant to overcome economic difficulties but as the most reliable and reasonable business partner," Maslov said.
In his view, different regions in Russia can benefit differently from cooperation with China.
Inexpensive and high-quality Chinese construction tools and materials have become very popular in the Russian Far East.
In central Russia, producers of agricultural commodities, including grain, meat and soybeans, have already found opportunities to increase exports to China, leading to the creation of jobs in these regions. China-Russia trade increased nearly 30 per cent year-on-year to 31.2 billion U.S. dollars in the first four months of 2018, China's Ministry of Commerce said.
"The two countries will take measures to optimize trade structure and cultivate new drivers for trade growth, so that the momentum can be maintained," the ministry's spokesman Gao Feng said earlier this month, expecting bilateral trade to exceed 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2018. Sergei Uyanayev, deputy director of the Far Eastern Studies Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, shared the optimism on the Chinese side. Russia's economic recovery and China's economic structural reform will allow the two countries to lift bilateral trade in the foreseeable future, he said.
Meanwhile, Russia may impose retaliatory tariffs of nearly $540 million on US goods in response to US duties on steel and aluminium, according to a document Moscow circulated Tuesday at the World Trade Organization.
Russia began a challenge against the US tariffs at the WTO last month, but the document now qualifies those as "safeguard measures," saying that international trade rules allow it to quickly apply duties on an equivalent amount of US goods.
US President Donald Trump sparked fears of a trade war in March when he decided to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminium imports over national security concerns.
Russia calculated that the US tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminum were worth nearly $538 million. "The proposed suspension of substantially equivalent concessions ... takes the form of an increase in duty on selected products originating in the United States," said the Russian document.
It said 30 days notice would be provided on which goods would be subject to the increased duties and would remain in effect until the United States withdrew the additional steel and aluminum tariffs. While the United States has provided temporary waivers to the tariffs to certain countries, including EU nations, the increased duties have gone into effect for Russia.
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