“Today, Russia-China relations have reached their highest level ever and, despite the difficult global situation, they continue to grow stronger”. This was declared by the Russian president in an interview given to the Chinese news agency Xinhua on the eve of his arrival in Beijing. Vladimir Putin adding, “President Xi Jinping, a wise and visionary leader, plays a special and leading role in the development of bilateral relations.”
“We met for the first time in March 2010 and have been seeing and calling each other regularly since then. President Xi has maintained a respectful, friendly, open communication style,” he added. Each meeting, he continued, was not only a dialogue between old friends, but also a fruitful exchange of opinions on bilateral and international agendas. Putin then recalled that in 2013 President Xi chose Russia as the first destination for a state visit as Chinese head of state. After being re-elected as Chinese president in March last year, his first state visit was once again made to Russia.
“This unprecedented level of strategic partnership between our countries determined my choice of China as the first state to visit after officially taking office as President of the Russian Federation,” he underlined.
Putin’s trip to China
In the Asian giant everything is therefore ready again to welcome the Russian leader tomorrow, Thursday 6 May, this time on his first mission outside the borders of the Federation since taking office for a new, fifth mandate. And while Russian forces are the protagonists of a new offensive on Ukrainian soil. It will be a two-day visit, at the invitation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has just returned from a tour of Europe which took him to France, Serbia and Hungary. And that last year he had chosen Russia as his first destination after his reconfirmation as president of the People’s Republic, a historic third position, and after the arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court against Putin.
Putin’s second visit to China in less than a year is, according to CNN, “the latest sign of the growing alignment” between the two countries “against a backdrop of hardening global fault lines as war ravages Gaza and Ukraine.” A mission that takes place a month after the conference on peace in Ukraine scheduled for mid-June in Switzerland and, according to the observers cited by the American network, within the framework of a “coordination of interests, not very close but growing, between avowedly anti-American countries“, with North Korea – whose economy depends almost entirely on China – accused of supporting Russia with war supplies. And the same goes for Iran (since last year in the Brics and the SCO). “Russia is receiving support for its war of aggression from China, Iran and North Korea,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned in April.
China and Russia, insist from Beijing, this year celebrate 75 years since the start of relations and bilateral relations, cooperation “in various sectors” and “regional and international issues of common interest” will be at the top of the agenda of the talks between the two leaders. Moscow and Beijing, writes the Russian agency Tass, “are linked by global partnership relations and strategic interaction” and Putin and Xi, “in addition to working relations they are also friends.” According to the Kremlin, after the talks the two leaders – who have seen each other more than 40 times – will sign a joint declaration and “a series of bilateral documents”. Moscow and Beijing have yet to come to an agreement on the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline.
Last year, trade volume reached $240 billion, a record. Since February 2022, Beijing has become the main market for Russian oil and gas. Even if the official data released by Beijing for the period of March and April speak of a decline in exports to Russia compared to last year, a sign of the fact – highlights CNN – that the Asian giant may have decided on measures to shelter from Western sanctions.
Nevertheless “Russia is central to China’s grand strategy” and in Beijing “there is a strong interest in making sure Russia does not lose the war“, says Manoj Kewalramani of the Takshashila Institution research center in Bangalore, quoted by the American network. Putin’s visit to the Asian giant also includes a face-to-face meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, before Putin moves to Harbin for the opening of the eighth Russia-China Expo and the fourth Russia-China Forum of interregional cooperation. All after the visit of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, to Beijing in early April.
One of Putin’s main objectives in China, writes Alexandra Prokopenko of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin in the Financial Times, will be to find a way to minimize any form of interruption of the lifeline that China has provided him from an economic point of view since the invasion of Ukraine and it is notable that during Putin’s reshuffle key officials for Sino-Russian relations remained in place, while the new Defense Minister, Andrei Belousov, is an economist with deep ties to the Chinese leadership .
Putin, 72 years old in October, entered the Kremlin for the first time at the end of 1999 and will remain in power until at least 2030, aiming for 2036. Xi, who will celebrate his 71st birthday in mid-June, became president in 2013 and, with the abolition of the two-term limit on the presidency, he can remain president for life. He had consolidated a “no limits” understanding with Putin shortly before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What for the Kremlin is a “special military operation” and which China has never condemned. Just as China and Russia have never explicitly condemned Hamas for the attack on October 7th in Israel. Yet, when Putin was sworn in as the new tsar a week ago, Xi was in Europe.
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