By Vestnik Kavkaza
The Russian office of the Russian-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace and Development has initiated the idea of mutual cancelation of tourist visas. The RCC thinks that visas today are the main obstacle for travelers. Relations between the countries are improving, while the visa-free regime could strengthen and develop them in various spheres.
The deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, Innovative Development and Entrepreneurship, Victor Zvagelsky, says that rapprochement will be beneficial for both parties. “Chinese business came to Russia at a time when the word “business” stopped being criminal in Russia, and was more or less legal. But Chinese business saw and got all that represented business in Russia at the time, it got the “wild capitalism”, with all its costs, with all its problems,” Zvagelsky recalls. “Perhaps the fear that Chinese businessmen got in the early years of cooperation with Russian business, today has still not passed mentally.”
“Having been burned in relations with Russia, they did not get what all normal businessmen got used to – a solution to some questions, a fair return – they are seriously thinking about how safe and how guaranteed it is to invest in Russian business,” the MP says.
According to him, to break this trend, in terms of how we can cooperate with China, we can guarantee to China absolute parity in relations today, it is pretty difficult from the point of view of the psychological change in relation to Russia.
“We have very beautiful and magnificent meetings, we have nice conversations, but today the percentage of the business cooperation with China is not as high as we would like it to be. China has always considered itself to be detached from the world economy, while global trends are affecting all countries,” Zvagelsky thinks.
However, according to him, “China sees that the Western countries are trying to build their relations with Russia, and it is also an important lesson that today no one can separate from the world economy, including China, which is very strongly integrated into the world economy. Therefore, we are not the only one who says that the priority for us today is the way to the East, China, but Russia can be China's priority partner in the future. Today we are absolutely turned to China, and I would like to see our relations evolve as positively as possible, and at a faster pace. The trend of slowing down of the rapid growth of the Chinese economy is already clear to the Chinese, so I think that by uniting with China today we can overcome not only our internal crisis, but the global crisis too.”
