Moscow/Beijing  - Russia's new president Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Beijing Friday in his first foreign policy visit that prioritizes military and energy cooperation with China over increasingly tense relations with the West.

The 42-year president is to hold talks with President Hu Jintao and is expected to sign a joint statements on the two countries foreign policy stance.

"I think that we will succeed in discussing all the questions that today worry both China and Russia. I am sure that talks will result in new interesting project and ideas," Medvedev said in an interview posted on the Kremlin's website ahead of the talks.

A planned meeting with Wen Jiabao was cancelled as the premier flew to south-west China emergency aide for the victims of the earthquake, the Kremlin said.

The scheduling is a bold move in Russia's resurgent world politics snubbing its largest trading partner Europe. Eight years back, Putin's first official trip abroad was to Britain, a state that has seen its relations with Moscow deteriorate in recent years.

Russia and China, both members of the UN Security Council, have grown closer in their foreign policy alignment in an effort to balance against US hegemony and shore up lucrative oil and gas trade.

The two country's foreign ministers met during a summit of the fast-growing BRICS states in Russia last week where they voiced a common approach on Iran's nuclear programme and opposition to Kosovo's independence and US plans for a missile defence shield.

"Our foreign policy must be sound and pragmatic, but also friendly and open. We count the People's Republic of China among our most important foreign partners," Medvedev told Chinese reporters in an interview posted on the Kremlin's website Thursday.

Medvedev, who succeed his mentor Vladimir Putin this month, flew from oil-rich Kazakhstan to energy-hungry Beijing on his four-day overseas trip Friday staking Russia's claim in managing one of the world's largest oil reserves in the Caspian Sea.

But Moscow has increasingly been competing with China for influence over trade in resources in Central Asia. A pipeline has been built to carry gas from Kazakhstan to China was a blow to Moscow in long-stalled talks to build a pipeline to ship Russia gas to China now stuck in a pricing dispute.

No deals are expected to be signed during the visit, but the two countries have touted the meeting as a commitment to future cooperation in civilian nuclear energy and economic ties, which currently lags far behind China's trade with other foreign powers. (dpa)