Russia’s Sechin says Taiwan will return to China ‘on schedule’ By Reuters

By Nailia Bagirova and Olesya Astakhova

BAKU (Reuters) -One in all Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, oil chief Igor Sechin, on Thursday heaped reward on China’s leaders, saying that Taiwan would return to its “native harbour” on time.

The deepening “no limits” partnership between the rising superpower of China and the pure assets titan of Russia is among the most intriguing geopolitical developments of latest years – and one the West is watching with anxiousness.

Sechin, the pinnacle of Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft, mentioned that choices taken by the twentieth Communist Occasion Congress, which cemented Xi Jinping place as probably the most highly effective Chinese language chief since Mao Zedong, would offer for a brand new stage of growth for the nation.

“The place of (China’s) management is very revered, which calmly and overtly, with out false premises, units out its positions, even on probably the most tough points, reminiscent of the issue of Taiwan, which on this regard will be assessed as considerably exaggerated,” Sechin mentioned.

Talking at a world financial discussion board in Baku, beforehand held in Italy’s Verona, Sechin mentioned U.S. makes an attempt to create its personal advanced microchip trade confirmed that “Taiwan’s return to its native harbour” was “on schedule”.

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its personal territory and has ramped up army and political stress in opposition to the island over the previous two years. Taipei strongly rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and vows to defend its freedom and democracy.

Russia has repeatedly warned the USA in opposition to meddling in China’s affairs whereas President Vladimir Putin has explicitly backed Xi over the destiny of the island the place the defeated Republic of China authorities fled in 1949 after shedding the Chinese language civil conflict to Mao’s communists.

BP (NYSE:)’S DIVIDEND

Turning to Rosneft, Sechin mentioned the corporate had transferred $700 million in second-half 2021 dividends into particular accounts for BP, which remained Rosneft’s “shadow” shareholder regardless of a choice to go away the corporate following the beginning of what Moscow calls its “particular army operation” in Ukraine.

BP mentioned its place on Russia has remained unchanged.

“In February we introduced our determination to exit Rosneft and our different Russian companies – we proceed to pursue that,” it mentioned in emailed feedback.

Sechin additionally mentioned that Saudi Arabia’s place on the worldwide oil market was “cheap” and based mostly on evaluation of oil provide and demand.

The US, he mentioned, had tried to steer Saudi Arabia to postpone oil output cuts as a part of OPEC+.

“Right now, the power coverage of the (Joe) Biden administration is fixing solely pre-election duties with a planning horizon of two weeks, on condition that the elections to the U.S. Congress are on November 8,” Sechin mentioned.

“This contains makes an attempt to steer Saudi Arabia to a minimum of postpone the announcement of this determination till the elections.”

The OPEC+ group of worldwide main oil producers, which incorporates Saudi Arabia and Russia, agreed this month to chop its mixed output by 2 million barrels per day regardless of opposition from the USA, which needs decrease gasoline costs.

Saudi Arabia rejected criticism of an OPEC+ determination to chop its oil manufacturing goal regardless of U.S. objections and mentioned that Washington’s request to delay the lower by a month would have had damaging financial penalties.