Strategic partners to maintain status quo: Senior diplomat

Russia's policy on China will not change under the Kremlin's new leadership, a senior Russian diplomat said on the eve of President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to China.

Medvedev, who replaced Vladimir Putin as president on May 7, will land in Beijing this afternoon on his first official visit as head of state outside the Commonwealth of Independent States.

"They (Putin and Medvedev) were partners, so they will also be in the future. They are like from one family, and their philosophy is also exactly the same," Russian ambassador to China from 1992 to 2005 Igor Rogachev told China Daily, speaking in fluent mandarin.