Russia has been a crucial energy source for China for years, including the construction of massive oil and gas pipelines in Siberia that have kept China’s industrial heartland humming and Russia’s energy-export diversification strategy alive. What never dropped was the other shoe.
Russia has long championed a second hulking pipeline project that would stretch south through the Altai passes of western Siberia, shipping some 50 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas a year to China by the back door. If developed, the new pipeline, called the Power of Siberia 2, would cement the two countries’ energy ties—and pave the way for an increasingly intertwined economic future.