The images showed something more than mere protocol: the smiles and handshakes gave an air of closeness and complicity to the meeting, at the end of last week, between two of the most powerful men on the planet, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and his Russian colleague, Vladimir Putin, and they appeared to be full confirmation of that “unlimited friendship” that both leaders proclaimed more than two years ago, on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Xi and Putin have held more than four interviews per year since 2013, which now totals 43 meetings, some personal and others virtual, a number much higher than Xi’s 19 summits with the president of India, Narendra Modri, and the 17 with the leaders of the United States Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. That Putin’s first visit a few hours after assuming a new presidential term was to Beijing is very significant.
And it’s not just about walks on long red carpets and long video calls. Trade between the two countries has skyrocketed following the attack by Russian troops on Ukraine. Last year culminated in an exchange of $240 billion, 26% more than in 2022, and 40% more than before the start of the war.
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
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On the other hand, as the Madrid newspaper reported on Saturday The world, Russia has quintupled the purchase of cars made in China, thanks to the fact that producers in that country accept payments in rubles: transactions in dollars with the Russians have been made difficult by the financial blockade included in Western sanctions on Moscow. “90% of payments (between the two countries) are made today in rubles and yuan,” Putin declared on Friday, with a satisfied smile.
Chinese components such as microchips, cruise missile engines and other basic elements for making weapons keep the Russian military industry alive
A European diplomatic source told EL TIEMPO on Friday that “both in Europe and in the United States, our governments are concerned about intelligence reports that indicate that Chinese components such as micro-chips, engines for cruise missiles and other basic elements for “Making weapons keeps the Russian military industry alive.”
“Something like 70% of the machinery and 90% of the micro-electronics that Russia imports comes from China,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a few weeks ago, explaining that Beijing thus supplied “the war machine.” “Russian.”
Trade between the two countries has skyrocketed following the attack by Russian troops on Ukraine.
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Russia and China: different origins and strategies
Putin grew up in a modest home in Leningrad, while Xi grew up in privilege, as his father was an important leader close to Mao Tse Tung.
Over time, everything changed: Xi’s father fell from grace and was sent into exile in a distant province. Putin studied law and in 1975 joined the KGB, where his cunning, his low profile that seemed to threaten no one, and his coldness allowed him to rise quickly.
By then, Xi had returned from years of work in the countryside at the time when the cultural revolution had thus decided to reeducate – which was the official word for it – privileged young people like him.
In 1974, already in Beijing, he joined the Communist Party, although due to his father’s affairs, he was rejected several times. As a work ant, he slowly rose to become general secretary of the party in Shanghai in 2000, after the incumbent fell from grace over accusations of corruption.
Xi Jinping, president of China.
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In addition to their origins, and although they have in common seeing the West as their enemy, they move with very different strategies regarding this issue. Today it is Xi who wants to maintain relations with the West on good terms, while Putin has decided to confront him. It is not that Xi has given up his plans to make China the number one power on the planet before 2050, but rather that “unlike Putin, who hates the West, the Chinese leader despises it,” as Le Monde pointed out.
Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Xi expressed concern that these tensions with the West affected Beijing’s plan to prevail over the United States. and Europe without firing a rocket. Xi believes in the maxim of Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military theorist, according to which “the art of war consists of subduing the enemy without combat.” The attack ordered by Putin more than two years ago makes Xi uncomfortable because it has strengthened the alliance of Washington and the EU, It has put NATO on guard and triggered the arms race in the West.
Even champions of pacifism and disarmament such as Germany and Japan (China’s great regional adversary) have raised their military spending to levels not seen since World War II. “And that bothers Xi a lot, even if he only tells Putin in private,” explained the diplomatic source in Paris.
(You can read: Russia announces the start of exercises with tactical nuclear weapons near Ukraine: what does it imply?)
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) attends a welcoming ceremony with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China
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Limits to the friendship between Xi and Putin?
Research from the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University in Beijing, cited by The world of Madrid, reveals that, in March, China suspended 80% of payment agreements with Russia, which can deal a very serious blow to the commercial flow. The exchange fell for the first time in years: in March 16% and in April 13%.
And there are more problems. Chinese banks are concerned about the sanctions that the United States Department of the Treasury may impose on them because Russian companies, as well as Russian oligarchs close to Putin, who have been directly targeted in the sanctions, move money in these financial entities in China.
If Washington sanctions them, these banks could be prevented from doing transactions with the United States, which would seriously affect them. Smaller entities, which are more vulnerable, have suspended transactions with Russia and Russian oligarchs, while larger banks have begun delaying transfers while their legal teams analyze the situation.
President Vladimir Putin, at his inauguration ceremony in the Kremlin.
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It is a very long document (about 7 thousand words in Russian) that says as much for its omissions as for its statements. The first thing is that The expression “friendship without limits”, which dominated the headlines of the world press after the February 2022 summit, did not appear this time. And the second thing is that Xi included in the declaration a principle that Beijing has considered non-negotiable: respect for “the territorial integrity of all countries,” something that Moscow violated by invading Ukraine and trying to annex part of its territory.
Xi smiled a lot at Putin at the two-day summit, but in the meantime, he squeezed his hand very tightly.
In an interview with the French newspaper L’Opinion, President Emmanuel Macron maintained that “Russia has already lost geopolitically” after the invasion of Ukraine, and “has begun to maintain a vassalage relationship with China.”
There may be some exaggeration in treating Moscow as a vassal of Beijing. But for now, It is evident that Putin needs China much more than Xi needs Russia. And that, for Russia, which during the second half of the last century was the great power that challenged the United States, is in itself a humiliation.
MAURICIO VARGAS – TIME ANALYST
[email protected] / Instagram @mvargaslinares
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