The grim events of recent times, characterized by imperialist threats, the expansion of the new coronavirus epidemic, and a persistent crisis caused by neoliberalism, make the cooperation between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China more remarkable, which today reaches a historical level, with significant advances in politics, foreign affairs, trade, economy, cultural exchanges, and other fields.

With very little coverage by the Western media, but of undoubted importance, was the recent visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China, where, together with his political counterpart, Xi Jinping, they witnessed the beginning of the construction of four reactors of two nuclear plants located in Chinese territory.

While the imperial media emphasized and fussed over the failure of a launch of a Chinese space rocket, whose few remains fell into the Indian Ocean, without causing damage, they overlooked that a Chinese probe had successfully landed on Mars and the process of construction of reactors, with which Russia and China comply with strategic cooperation agreements signed in June 2018.

The four units will be equipped with the latest generation of reactors VVER-1200. They will reach a total power of 4,800 megawatts, and should be operational before 2028.

As planned, the China National Nuclear Corporation will carry out the construction of the units and the Russian state corporation Rosatom will be in charge of the equipment and technical assistance, according to Sputnik, while Xinhua said that the reactors to be placed in the units are powerful, modern, and meet the highest safety requirements and the highest ecological standards.

Both sources agreed that China will have access to cleaner and cheaper energy, since it´s expected that, in the long term, the joint project will help that country reduce its carbon dioxide emissions.

According to President Xi Jinping, what has been achieved in the area of nuclear power generation serves as a reference to expand and consolidate work in other fields, and he proposed creating a more open management system in this regard, because “The task of all countries is fighting against the climate change”, he added.

According to the Chinese expert Han Xiaoping, one of the distinguishing feature of this third-generation nuclear technology is its safety and potential to prevent accidents like Chernobyl (April 26^th, 1986, in the former Soviet Union) and Fukushima from happening (March 11^th, 2011, Japan).

According to experts, cooperation between the two nations could even help China replace part of the North American technology that some of its plants have with Russian technology, especially given the policy of unilateral restrictive measures the White House has pursued.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff