CHINESE President Hu Jintao will visit his friend President Vladimir Putin this week and will launch the "year of China" in Russia.
China and Russia, long suspicious of each other, have put aside many of their differences and have begun to emerge as a joint force in the world.
Although China, along with India, is the main market for Russian weapons, arms sales will not be on the agenda of the three-day visit that starts tomorrow.
Rather, Mr Hu and Mr Putin will talk energy before launching the year-long Chinese cultural festival, following a "year of Russia" that is about to end in China.
Until a new Siberia-Pacific oil pipeline is finished, Russia is likely to increase rail deliveries of oil to its energy-insatiable neighbour.
The Chinese are investing in Russia, and China is the the first foreign investor to become involved in the reconstruction of war-torn Chechnya. Deals worth up to $US4 billion ($A5 billion) could be signed this week.
"We are proceeding from the fact that there are no big political problems between us that could hamper our economic co-operation," a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
It was not always so. After Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, Mao Zedong began to consider himself the world's senior communist and a rift opened up with the Soviet Union that continued until the 1980s. In 1969, China and the Soviet Union fought over their disputed frontier.
The dispute was settled in 2004 and in 2005 Russia and China held joint military exercises, the first since 1958.
The past year's Russian festival was an attempt to renew Chinese interest in the culture of Pushkin and Tchaikovsky. Russians, aware of the economic opportunities, are increasingly opting to study Chinese in language courses.
A Western diplomat said modern Russian foreign policy was incredibly pragmatic and it was logical from Russia's perspective to develop relations with its neighbour.
"Russia is more assertive now," the diplomat said. "If before Moscow showed sensitivity to Western concerns, now it is not apologetic about anything. I suspect the US will probably be a bit wary (about growing Chinese-Russian ties) and that is only sensible.
"But the Americans should have seen it coming. They may like to pay a little more attention to Asia themselves."
■ Riot police wielding truncheons broke up a rally in Nizhny Novgorod, in central Russia, detaining dozens of activists.
It was the second big anti-government protest by liberals and leftists this year to be broken up by police as Russia prepares for December parliamentary elections and next year's presidential vote.
Authorities had not given permission for the rally.
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