The New Great Game Round-Up #52

The Great Game Round-Up brings you the latest newsworthy developments regarding Central Asia and the Caucasus region. We document the struggle for influence, power, hegemony and profits between a U.S.-dominated NATO, its GCC proxies, Russia, China and other regional players.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to Shanghai this week, the whole world paid attention. On the first day of his visit, the Russian leader attended the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), where Chinese President Xi Jinping criticized NATO's Cold War thinking and made the case for turning the CICA into a security dialogue and cooperation platform covering the whole of Asia. Xi emphasized that security problems in Asia should be solved by Asians themselves. Therefore, the Chinese government advocates closer cooperation between the CICA and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). But the CICA summit and the remarks of China's President did not attract much attention because everybody was awaiting Xi's meetings with Putin and the signing of the 'gas deal of the century'. While Beijing demonstrated its support of Moscow in the ongoing conflict with NATO over Ukraine, the American media was already celebrating that no gas deal had yet been signed. However, it is never a good idea to count one's chickens before they are hatched:

​Russia and China seal historic $400bn gas deal

After 10 years of negotiations, Russia's Gazprom and China's CNPC have finally signed a historic gas deal which will provide the world's fastest growing economy with the natural gas it needs to keep pace for the next 30 years.

The total value of the contract is $400 billion, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller said. However, the price of gas stipulated in the document remains a “commercial secret.”

Russia will supply China 38 billion cubic meters of gas per year via the eastern 'Power of Siberia' pipeline, which crosses Siberia and reaches China's populous northeast regions. A separate route that could deliver gas to China's western provinces and provide diversification is also in the works, according to Putin.

Read more