China's President Hu Jintao has a reserved demeanor. So it is hard to imagine him as a poker player. But in energy politics with neighboring Russia, he certainly is.

On a visit in midyear to the world's biggest natural gas exporter and one of the top oil suppliers, Hu made it plain that his energy-hungry nation had a voracious appetite for Russian resources to fuel its economy.

He talked about Sino-Russian trade growing from $55 billion in 2010 to$100 billion by 2015, and $200 billion by 2020. Much of this would be Russian energy exports to China, including oil, gas, hydro-electricity and coal.