In another sign of strengthening China-Russia ties, Putin confirmed the multi-billion dollar oil pipeline being built across Siberia will first go to China and only later to Russia's Pacific coast where oil can be exported to Japan, the Wall Street Journal reported. China and Japan have been competing for years over the pipeline which will eventually pump up to one million barrels of Russian oil a day. The decision comes weeks after joint military exercises between Russia and China and just as the neighbors resolved a forty-year old border dispute.