RUSSIA: CHINESE PREMIER ZHU RONGJI VISIT

(26 Feb 1999) Natural Sound

A day after signing major trade agreements with Russia, China's premier played tourist, visiting a Russian military museum and planning an excursion to St. Petersburg.

Zhu Rongji toured a Second World War museum at Poklonnaya Hill in western Moscow on Friday and planned to have lunch with Russian business leaders.

He's already signed 11 agreements with Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and other officials, including deals on intellectual property protection, oil supplies to China and building oil and gas pipelines.

It is at this museum in western Moscow that Russians remember their 20 (m) million victims of the Second World War.

On Friday, China's Prime Minister turned tourist and took a look around.

His tour of the military museum was very different from duties of the day before.

On Thursday, the real work of his official visit was done.

Zhu signed 11 agreements with Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and other officials, including deals on the protection of intellectual property, on oil supplies to China, and on the building of oil and gas pipelines.

Both countries hope the agreements will boost falling trade and other economic ties that have been set back by Russia's economic crisis and a slowdown in China's growth.
Zhu also met President Boris Yeltsin on Thursday for talks on the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership.

China and Russia describe that as a counterbalance to the perceived domination by the United States in global affairs.

Political ties between Moscow and Beijing gathered strength in the 1990s after decades of hostility, and China has become the top customer for Russia's cash-strapped defence industries.

Zhu plans to travel to St. Petersburg on Friday evening where he will visit a plant that manufactures equipment for nuclear power plants before heading home.

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