Putin in China to Cement Key Alliance

Russian President Vladimir Putin started a visit to China Tuesday aimed at bolstering a crucial alliance, with foreign policy to the fore as the neighbors seek to block action against Syria.

Putin will also meet the presidents of Iran and Afghanistan as part of a regional summit during the three-day visit, his first to Asia since starting an historic third term last month.

But the growing international pressure for action on Syria -- a Soviet-era ally that Moscow still supplies with arms -- is expected to dominate.

Beijing and Moscow have walked in lockstep on Syria to the anger of Arab and Western nations, with EU president Herman Van Rompuy telling Putin in Russia on Monday that world powers needed to "find common messages on which we agree".

Known for confronting the West repeatedly during his 2000-2008 presidency, Putin pointedly skirted the issue of Syria during a briefing Monday with EU leaders, noting only that "our positions do not coincide on every issue".

Putin has been keen to play up the importance of Russia's at-times uneasy ties with China, which have grown stronger in the past year as both used their veto power on the U.N. Security Council to block action against Damascus.

In an article in the Chinese Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper on Tuesday, the Russian leader wrote that the two countries could find common language on issues like Syria.

"Relations between Russia and China have been rightfully called a model of the new type of intergovernmental ties. Therefore, they are extremely stable, and not subject to spur-of-the-moment political situations," he said.

Although the two nations had periodic border conflicts and viewed each other with suspicion in Soviet times, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared this weekend that Russia had an exemplary partnership with China on foreign policy.

Putin, who came to China just weeks after cancelling a visit to the United States, began talks with President Hu Jintao Tuesday ahead of a meeting with Hu's likely successor Vice President Xi Jinping on Wednesday.

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said last week the two countries planned to sign 17 diplomatic and business agreements that should help support booming trade, which reached $80 billion (64 billion euros) last year.

The Russian delegation includes six cabinet members, the heads of Russia's energy giants Gazprom, Rosneft and Transneft, and "all the major names of Russian business", Ushakov said.

While energy is high on the agenda, a long-awaited gas deal that could see Russia supply 70 billion cubic meters of gas a year directly to China will not be signed due to pricing disagreements, Gazprom said on Monday.

In his People's Daily article, Putin said Russia hoped to export "great quantities" of natural gas to China in the near future.

"Our joint projects practically change the entire configuration of the global energy market," he said.

Among other reported deals to be inked during the visit is a joint project to develop a new long-haul aircraft by Russian company Ilyushin and China's Comac.

"We are ready to vigorously push forward large cooperation projects in civil aviation manufacture, aerospace and other hi-tech industries," Putin wrote in the Chinese newspaper.

Putin is a frequent guest of Chinese leaders, last visiting Beijing in October in his then capacity as prime minister. It was his only foreign trip after he announced in September his plan to run again for president.

A month after his trip, he was awarded a Chinese version of the Nobel prize for "keeping world peace".