Arctic Exploration as an Element of Russia's Economic Development and China's Energy Security
The article analyzes the current and controversial topic of mutually beneficial partnership between Russia and China in the joint development of energy resources from the point of view of the Russian Federation economic development in the conditions of sanctions and the PRC energy security as a key area of country's economy development. Under energy security the state authorities of the PRC understand the state in which the state protects its strategic interests, which consist of uninterrupted supply of energy resources at affordable prices, the quantity and quality necessary and sufficient for the sustainable development of the country. The paper used open statistical data processed by mathematical methods, presented in graphical and tabular form. Using analytical research methods, the authors characterize the changes taking place in the Chinese energy sector: the rapid growth of domestic energy production, including through renewable energy sources, does not meet the country's energy needs. The huge and constantly growing energy consumption leads to the fact that China's energy dependence on external sources in 2017 reached 69.8%. China is concerned about its forced dependence on ever-increasing imports of oil and gas, the growing influence of world oil prices and heightened geopolitical factors (trade wars, strained relations with a number of Southeast Asian countries, and others) on Chinese channels for importing and transporting hydrocarbons. "Dirty energy resources", such as excess capacity of the coal industry, developing peat industry, and intensification of exploring its own minerals, including shale hydrocarbons, act as a "safety cushion". At the same time, there is a technological backwardness of the industry: the share of coal consumption in the energy basket of China is 60.4%. The paper shows that the Chinese -Russian energy cooperation, in particular, the Yamal LNG, Power of Siberia, Silk Road projects and China's investment in the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), played an important role in finding new sources of access to traditional types of energy for China, expanding the safe import route and a new model of Russian -Chinese relations built on a mutually beneficial basis: without the help of the PRC, the Yamal-LNG project would not have been implemented under the sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation.