Challenging American Leadership Is Not At Stake.

I Would Like To Draw Attention To The Fact That We Have Gone From Pure Trade [with China] In Traditional Goods [energy Resources, Such As Hydrocarbons, Oil And Now Natural Gas, Petrochemicals On The One Hand And Textiles And Footwear On The Other] To A Whole New Level Of Economic Cooperation. For Example, We Are Working Together On Space Programmes. Moreover, We Are Developing And Soon Will Begin The Production Of A Heavy Helicopter. We Are Now Tracing The Plan For The Creation Of A Wide-body Long-range Aircraft.

We Have Established The Customs Union And The Eurasian Economic Union Not By Force, But Through A Compromise. It Was A Challenging, Complicated, Multi-year Process Based On Agreement, Compromise And Mutually Acceptable Conditions In The Hope Of Creating For Our Economies And For Our People Better Competitive Advantages In The World Markets And In The World As A Whole.

Take, For Example, Lithuania. Do You Know, What Was Its Population In The Soviet Times? It Was 3.4 Mln People. It Was A Small Country, A Small Republic. And What Is It Now? I Have Looked Though The Recent Statistics, Today The Population Of This Country Is 1.4 Mln People. Where Are The People? More Than Half Of The Citizens Have Left The Country.

This Work Is Either Useless Or Harmful, Because There Is Nothing Good About Populism. If You Wanted To Hear My Opinion On This Issue, That Is What I Think.

As To Our Trade And Economic Relations With China, They Are Growing More And More Diverse Each Day, Something We Have Worked On For A Long Time With Our Partners From China.