IT took half a dozen planes to ferry Russias 800-strong delegation to Beijing last week for President Vladimir Putins two- day state visit to China. Chinese diplomats complained they were dissatisfied with Russias energy cooperation ahead of the trip, but must have been placated by the 29 agreements the two leaders signed, including four important energy deals.

Sino-Russian relations are at an unprecedented high as the two dynamic economies dovetail almost perfectly. Russia has the energy and raw materials China desperately needs to maintain its exponential growth while China sports a billion-strong consumer market in Russias backyard. And there is politics. Putin is keen to build a Eurasian trading block to counter US power and is promoting a multi-polar world founded on ties between Beijing and Moscow.

China is already Russias biggest buyer of weapons while total trade has tripled in the past five years to $29bn (Pounds 16.3bn, E23.5bn) and is expected to almost triple again in the next four years. Russia signed a deal to ship up to 80bn cubic meters of gas a year to China by 2011 and a $10bn project to build two pipelines to supply the gas.

Electricity exports will also be boosted by more than 1,000% to 60bn kilowatt hours a year, equivalent to 7% of Russias total production in another deal. And Russias state-owned oil company Rosneft entered into a joint-venture with Chinas national oil company China National Petroleum Corp that will invest $2bn in downstream oil projects as well as explore and develop oil deposits in Russias untouched Eastern Siberian regions.

But Putin balked at caving in to Chinas most sought after deal an oil pipeline from Russias oil storehouse in Western Siberian to Daquin in Chinas underdeveloped northwest the pipeline Yukoss owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky was proposing to build until the Kremlin threw him in jail last May. But Putin did agree to a feasibility-study and then to talk again.