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Top stories from the Russian press on Thursday, August 31st, prepared by TASS

Russian President Vladimir Putin may visit China in October; military seizes power in oil-rich Gabon; and EU countries importing record-high volumes of Russian LNG despite sanctions. These stories topped Thursday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Vedomosti: Putin may visit China in October, take part in Belt and Road Forum

The timing of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China to attend the Belt and Road Forum in October is being "worked out," according to Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Putin’s last trip abroad was in December 2022, when he visited Kyrgyzstan, for a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, and Belarus. Experts interviewed by Vedomosti believe that Russia may seek to expand its participation in China’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

According to Yana Leksyutina, professor at St. Petersburg State University, Beijing sees virtually any form of trade and economic cooperation with countries that have expressed support for the Belt and Road Initiative as participation in the BRI, and, thus, the entire range of Russian-Chinese economic cooperation could theoretically come under the BRI umbrella.

She told Vedomosti that the current framework suits Russia, which combines the Moscow-driven Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) project with China’s BRI, because it emphasizes the partnership aspect of the two countries’ relationship.

Vasily Kashin, head of the Center for Contemporary Studies at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), told the newspaper that Putin’s likely visit to China in October can be seen as both reciprocating Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow in March and as continuing Russia’s record of participating in the Belt and Road Forum. At the same time, the Russian leader attended the event in previous years as a special guest because Moscow does not formally participate in the Belt and Road Initiative, but does support it. However, under the new circumstances, Russia may very well reconsider its previous approach to the BRI and boost the level of its participation in the marquee Chinese initiative, the expert noted.

Izvestia: How post-coup scenario may develop in oil-rich Gabon, commonalities with Niger

The Gabonese military has annulled the results of the recent presidential election, in which incumbent President Ali Bongo Ondimba won for the third time in a row, dissolved the government and closed the country’s borders. Thus, Gabon has become the latest African country to experience a military coup. However, despite similarities and coincidences in timing between the coup in Gabon and July’s military takeover in Niger, experts are skeptical that these two countries are undergoing identical processes, Izvestia writes.

"Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea - the [West African] countries where recent military coups have taken place - have much more in common with Gabon than Gabon has with them. Here [in Gabon], we have a completely different economic structure, a completely different history and a completely different system of power," Vsevolod Sviridov, an expert at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), told Izvestia.

The situation in Gabon represents yet another blow to Paris’ reputation in Africa, as the Central African country was a former French colony and French business is heavily represented there. The Gabonese economy is very different from that of neighboring countries, as well, with Gabon ranking fifth among Africa’s oil producers. "The situation in Gabon is most likely related to economic stagnation, among other factors," the expert added.

Gabon is a member of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), which is not very politically active, Sviridov noted. "I do not think that ECCAS will threaten to intervene. Most likely, the [military] conspirators will try to gain a foothold in power and then begin a long and not always successful process of transitioning to a democratic administration," the expert told Izvestia. Sviridov believes that the reactions of both Paris and Washington will be a decisive factor in how the situation develops further.

Vedomosti: EU imports record-high volumes of Russian LNG despite sanctions regime

EU member states intend to buy record volumes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia in 2023, despite the bloc’s intention to phase out the use of Russian fossil fuels by 2027, Vedomosti writes. Russian LNG imports in the first seven months of 2023 increased by 40% from 15 mln to 22 mln cubic meters compared to the same period in 2021. A survey conducted by Global Witness shows that Russia is now the second-largest supplier of fuel to the EU after the United States. According to their estimates, European countries spent more than 5.3 bln euros on Russian LNG during this period.

According to the report, EU countries accounted for fully 52% of Russian LNG exports from January through July 2023, whereas this figure was 49% in 2022 and 39% in 2021. Analysts highlighted that the year-on-year increase in European LNG imports from Russia (40%) far outpaced the global average increase in LNG sales, which was just 6%. After China, Spain (18% of total Russian sales) and Belgium (17%) became the top importers of Russian LNG.

Given declining supplies of Russian pipeline gas and the limited expansion of global LNG production capacity in 2022-2023, there are now no free capacities in the LNG market, forcing the EU to continue buying from Russian LNG producer Novatek, Finam analyst Sergey Kaufman told Vedomosti.

There is a risk that the EU will abandon Russian LNG, but Kaufman believes that this is unlikely in the next 1-2 years. First, the EU will attempt to fully wean itself off of its dependence on gas supplies from Gazprom, and only then, when the supply of LNG in world markets is actively growing, will it be able to abandon Russian LNG altogether, the expert believes.

Izvestia: What the future may hold for the US-China relationship

Relations between China and the United States have made modest progress with the parties agreeing to establish a new bilateral working group at the deputy ministerial level in 2024. This group, composed of officials from the world’s two largest economies, will work to resolve trade and investment disputes. The working group agreement was the main outcome of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit to China, which ended on August 30. But, whether the two economic heavyweights will eventually be able to move beyond the decision to sit down at the negotiating table toward making real progress is another question altogether, Izvestia writes.

Raimondo noted that Washington and Beijing agreed to share information on the enforcement of export restrictions. But, perhaps the only tangible result of Raimondo’s second day in China was the decision to hold the next Chinese-American tourism leaders’ summit in the first half of 2024, after a four-year hiatus, as a means of stimulating tourism exchanges, which dropped significantly during the coronavirus pandemic, the newspaper writes.

However, despite the cautiously optimistic statements by the parties, the key trade and economic issues between the world’s two leading economies have not been resolved.

This marks the Biden administration’s first major attempt at defusing the simmering tensions in China-US economic relations. But, no major shift in US economic policy toward China nor significant progress in resolving the numerous outstanding issues should be expected yet, Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University’s Institute of International Studies, told the newspaper.

Dialogue is important, but the problems between the two powers have become systemic, said Brian Mercurio, a law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Kommersant: Serbian lawmakers seeking BRICS membership bid, shift away from EU path

A group of lawmakers from Serbia’s ruling coalition has called for a revision of Belgrade’s foreign policy, which formally states that joining the EU is the Balkan country’s primary objective. Simultaneously, the revisionist lawmakers advocated seeking membership in BRICS. According to Kommersant’s sources familiar with the Serbian leadership’s position as well as Serbian experts, given that implementing such a dramatic policy swing is unrealistic, it is more accurately seen as a trial balloon by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to simultaneously send signals to both East and West.

The parliamentarians submitted a draft resolution on Serbia’s BRICS membership to Serbian Parliamentary Speaker Vladimir Orlic. It calls for holding a referendum on the issue, developing an accession plan and establishing a special ministry to coordinate all accession initiatives. As a result, members of the ruling coalition want to fundamentally change the country’s foreign policy approach. "Serbia’s European path has a clear alternative - joining BRICS, the most relevant global economic and political integration process today," the resolution says.

Thus, the members of the ruling coalition want to fundamentally change the country’s foreign policy parameters, despite the fact that the country’s leadership has declared that joining the European Union is its primary objective.

Sources close to the Serbian leadership, however, see the initiative to bring Serbia into the BRICS group as unrealistic. Dragomir Andzhelkovic, a political scientist in Belgrade, believes that the resolution on joining BRICS may have been proposed in agreement with the Serbian president as a means of balancing between pro-Western and pro-Russian factions in Belgrade.