Chinese President Hu Jintao met industry chiefs in Russia's oil-rich Tatarstan region on Wednesday during a visit aimed at securing energy supplies and smoothing relations between the neighbouring countries.
Hu attended a trade exhibition in Kazan, capital of the mainly Muslim province in central Russia, and met heads of heavy industry including major oil producer Tatneft and local aircraft and ship manufacturers.
Tatarstan is about as continental as you can get. I like seeing China move this way for its oil. If it has to devote more resources to protecting land lines of communication to central Asia as well as sea lines of communication, China will have less ability to fight us in the western Pacific.
And in the long run, hopefully less reason to fight us. As I've noted before, preparing to beat China in a war is an inferior strategy to pointing China away from the sea.
