Beijing: Russia is our BFF
The top story on Xinhua News Agencyโs English website today is: A new era for the China-Russia relationship in 2019, about Xรญ Jรฌnpรญng ไน ่ฟๅนณ and Vladimir Putin opening โa new era for their countries’ strategic partnership in 2019, heralding an epoch of greater development in bilateral win-win cooperation.โ
The article checks off a listย of recent cooperative projects, including:
- The China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline.
- The Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye cross-border railway bridge.
- The Heihe-Blagoveshchensk cross-border highway bridge.
- Record bilateral trade of over $100 billion in 2018.
But there is no mention of an equally important development inย todayโs news: China, Russia, and Iran began a four-day joint naval drill in the Gulf of Oman, reports CNN:
China, Russia and Iran began a four-day joint military exercise in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman on Fridayโฆ The vessels planned to leave Iran’s Chabahar port in the Gulf of Oman, before being deployed across areas in the north of the Indian Ocean, Second Rear Admiral Gholamreza Tahani said earlier, according to Iran’s state-run Press TVโฆ
The joint drills also serve as a signal to the world that relations between Tehran, Moscow and Beijing have reached a “meaningful” level, Tahani said. He added that it was the first time Iran has held a joint exercise with two major world naval powers at this scale.
Nor does Xinhua mentionย the November naval drill when China, Russia, and South Africa participated in an โunprecedented joint trilateral sea exerciseโย sailing out of Cape Town.
