A plan to transit Russian natural gas to China via Kazakhstan has recently triggered a hot debate among Chinese pundits over the fate of the long-discussed Power of Siberia 2 project.
Dauren Abayev, Kazakhstan’s envoy to Russia, told Russia’s TASS news agency in an interview on May 4 that Kazakhstan plans to transit about 35 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian gas to China annually.
He added that the roadmap of the project has been signed, and he said this plan and Kazakhstan’s plan to import Russian gas for domestic use have entered a price negotiation phase.
Citing Abayevt, Reuters on the same day published an article with a headline “Russia plans to pipe 35 bcm of gas to China via Kazakhstan, TASS reports.”
The Reuters story was translated and reprinted by Chinese state media including the Global Times on Monday and China News Service on Tuesday.
Chinese commentators and academics are offering mixed views on whether the announcement of the Kazakhstan-transit plan means anything for the Power of Siberia 2, which will pass through Mongolia and which has been under difficult negotiations between Beijing and Moscow since 2021.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to discuss the Power of Siberia 2 in Beijing on May 15-16.
“Putin may have already given up his plan to try to lure Mongolia with the Power of Siberia 2,” Alex Tsai, a former legislator in Taiwan and a PhD degree holder from Tsinghua University, said in an interview with BNE TV, a pro-Beijing Chinese TV channel in New Zealand.
“Putin is upset that Mongolia wants to join the United States’s Indo-Pacific strategy,” Tsai said. “He has not yet made a fuss about this only because he is too busy with the Ukrainian war.”
Tsai said Moscow, by highlighting its Kazakhstan-transit plan, wants to transmit a message that it does not necessarily need Mongolia in order to send gas to China.
Play rare earths card?
“How dare Mongolia request to use China’s port to export its rare earth to the US? ” a Beijing-based military writer using the pen name Huashan Qiongjian writes in an article. “How can China feel comfortable allowing the Power of Siberia 2 to pass through Mongolia?
He says that, as Russia now also has its own concerns about the Mongolia route, it’s good to have the Kazakhstan route as an alternative.
That mil-blogger says the plan of the US to block the export of Russian gas will fail while European countries will have to cooperate with China and Russia for energy supply.
A reminder to Mongolia
“The suggestion of building a pipeline to China through Kazakhstan can help Moscow achieve three goals at the same time,” Zheng Jiyong, director of the Center for Korean Studies at Fudan University, says in an article published on Thursday.
“Firstly, it can strengthen its energy partnership with China as the current Power of Siberia project can only supply China with 22 bcm of gas, about 5% of China’s total annual consumption of 400 bcm,” he writes. “Secondly, it can help prevent Kazakhstan from decoupling from Russia and leaning towards other nations.”
He says this gained importance when seen in the light of a Kyiv Post report last week that the US had purchased 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan issued a partial denial, saying that the auctioned planes can only leave the country in the form of scrap metal.
“Thirdly, the suggestion can send a reminder that the energy trade between Russia and China does not necessarily need to rely on Mongolia,” Zheng says. “If Mongolia wants to cooperate with Russia and China but at the same time chooses to become a pawn of the West, it will only hurt itself.”
He adds that although Mongolia’s previous plans to host a US military base and to ship rare earth to the US have not yet succeeded, the landlocked country’s intention to get closer to the West is obvious.
A Henan-based columnist called Qingqing says in an article that Mongolia has recently agreed to hold large-scale joint military drills with the People’s Liberation Army, showing that it is willing to cooperate with China and stay away from the US.
He says the latest exercise can lay a good foundation for the development of the China-Mongolia-Russia economic and security relations and the closure of the Power of Siberia 2 deal.
Other commentators have pointed out that Russia’s state-owned Gazprom wants to close the Power of Siberia 2 deal, which is more solid than the Kazakhstan-transit plan, as early as possible.
On May 3, Gazprom said it recorded a net loss of 629 billion rubles (US$6.9 billion) in 2023, its first annual loss in more than 20 years, as sales to Europe dropped amid western sanctions. Kazakhstan only reached a preliminary agreement with Russia for its proposed transit plan in May 2023.
Sergey Victorovich Mochalnikov, deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation, told Russian media Sputnik News on April 16 that Russia and China will close the Power of Siberia 2 deal after both sides agree on gas prices.
Read: Power of Siberia 2 stuck on gas price, branch issues
Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3
Thanks for the background on this issue. I’m sure the western media will report the reconsideration of possible routes as an indication of a boycott of Russian gas rather than what looks like a smooth move between to two major powers to protect their interests.