China signs deal for gas in trade talks with Putin

China and Russia announced $3.5 billion worth of trade agreements on Tuesday and reaffirmed their commitment to a huge natural gas deal that would give the Chinese an important new Russian source of supply, once the final details on pricing are negotiated. The agreements, signed by Prime Ministers Vladimir V. Putin and Wen Jiabao, came on the second day of Mr. Putin's trip to China, which both countries have portrayed as a reflection of their increasingly close collaboration. The natural gas deal was called a "framework" by Alexei Miller, the chief of Gazprom, the Russian state-run gas exporter, which made the deal with the China National Petroleum Corporation, China's largest oil and gas producer.