During Wednesday's meeting, Medvedev said he was confident of realizing the bilateral trade goal set at $100 billion in 2015 and $200 billion in 2020.

"Those are clear signs of enduring high-level and deep Sino-Russia cooperation," said a senior official of a regional government of the Russian Federation.

"Though Russia was close to Western thinking on some issues sometimes, it is closer to Chinese thinking in most others," said Sergei Minenko, general representative of the Irkutsk regional government of the Russian Federation in China.

He said only very few countries are labeled, like China, as being "Russia's strategic partner" — a recognition of Russia's trust and importance in the country.

Experts in economic and foreign policies agreed with Minenko that the "comprehensive strategic partnership" of the two will continue to bear fruit.

Cheng Yijun, director of the Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Russia's diplomatic and economic stance toward China will not change and will continue to reflect the will of the Putin-Medvedev tandem.

Cheng said enhanced cooperation is the "only choice" as the two neighboring emerging economies share "interests that converge".

Xing Guangcheng, deputy-director of the Center of China's Borderland History and Geography Research at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, added that China and Russia's engagement on the Syrian issue is not an ad hoc cooperation, but rather a move that is constant with the two countries' "inherent" strategy.

"China and Russia hold different moral principles and values than those of the West. They will continue the track of strategic partnership."

Josef Janning, director of studies at the European Policy Center in Brussels, said the two heads are meeting at a time when the two countries are faced with new and ambitious domestic development plans.

To realize its domestic agenda, Janning said that China is looking for partners worldwide that can help it out. Meanwhile, Russia has set its modernization plan and development blueprint in the Far East, which is an opportunity for both sides to deepen cooperation.

Contact the writers at wujiao@chinadaily.com.cn