Putin: Ties with China 'undoubtedly' diplomatic priority

Infrastructure and culture exchange

Humanitarian cooperation between Russia and China, he said, has been progressing in the right direction, and the bilateral National Years, Language Years, Tourism Years as well as the ongoing Youth Years have substantially contributed to the unprecedented bilateral ties.

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"The young generation of the two countries have become increasingly interested in each other's history, culture and customs," Putin said. "That's an objective process, and we will give full support to such process."

The Russian president said the two countries planned to boost investment cooperation as the scale of bilateral investment cooperation was obviously inconsistent with the two sides' real capabilities and demands.

"We are more than clear that the two countries have more potentials to tap and more room to improve," he said, adding that they boasted plentiful promising areas, such as machinery manufacturing, agricultural product processing, mining and transportation and energy infrastructure.

Anti-terrorism

Speaking of 2015 when Russia and China will jointly celebrate the 70th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis, Putin said that the two countries are unanimous in opposing attempts to distort the World War II record.

Those attempts are unacceptable and the consequence is hazardous, he said.

"Next year, we will organize a series of events to jointly celebrate the 70th anniversary of victory in both bilateral form and within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, " he said, adding the two sides would focus on engaging the young people into the activities.

Russia and China, Putin noted, have also been actively advocating the creation of a new security and sustainable development framework in the Asia-Pacific region, which is based on such principles as equality, abiding by international laws, non- use or non-threatening use of violence.

"Nowadays, that issue has become increasingly urgent," he said, adding the forthcoming summit of the CICA, an efficient cooperation mechanism, will facilitate its resolution.