Russia and China opened a historic oil pipeline in a move hailed by their leaders as the first step towards diversifying Russia’s energy exports away from Europe and towards its eastern neighbour.
The commercial logic of greater energy links between one of the largest producers of energy and the world’s largest consumer has outweighed political distrust between the two nations, which fought a brief war in 1969 and only two years ago finalised border delimitation.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao marked the completion of the Chinese branch by simultaneously pressing a button to open the pipeline during a ceremony in Beijing on Monday.
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