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Mishustin meets Xi Jinping.
Russian Prime Minister Mishustin recently visited China for two days at the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Qiang. During his visit, he met with Chinese leaders Xi Jinping and Li Qiang and mentioned strengthening cooperation in multiple fields.
Russia invaded Ukraine last year, and China has long been seen as secretly supporting Russia. Shortly before Mishustin’s visit to China, China sent Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, to visit Ukraine.
This is Mishustin’s first visit to China since taking office. What are the highlights of his trip?
China and Russia strengthen cooperation
Russian Prime Minister Mishustin met Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang during his two-day visit to China. Reports of the meeting centered on increased cooperation.
Xinhua News Agency reported that Xi Jinping emphasized that China is willing to continue to firmly support each other with Russia on issues concerning each other’s core interests, and strengthen cooperation in multilateral arenas such as the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS, and the G20.
He said that the two sides should continue to tap the potential, improve the level of economic, trade and investment cooperation, improve the system and mechanism of bilateral cooperation, consolidate and expand the basic cooperation in energy, interconnection and interoperability, and create more new growth points.
Chinese official media reports also quoted Mishustin as saying that Xi Jinping’s historic state visit to Russia in March this year was very successful and opened up a new era of Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination. Russia is willing to work with China to earnestly implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, make full use of regular meetings between the two prime ministers and related cooperation mechanisms, and deepen practical cooperation in various fields.
After meeting with Mishustin, Li Qiang said that China is willing to optimize the trade structure with Russia, further enrich trade categories, expand cooperation in agriculture, service trade, digital economy, green development and other fields, and promote economic and trade cooperation in both quality and quality.
Sino-Russian trade will increase to 200 billion U.S. dollars
Russian Prime Minister Mishustin speaks at the Russia-China Business Forum in Shanghai.
Chinese media reported that when Mishustin attended the China-Russia Business Forum on Wednesday, he quoted Wang Zhihuan’s poem “Climbing the Stork Tower” to describe Sino-Russian relations.
In this forum, he mentioned new projects that China and Russia may cooperate in the future.
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Mishustin visits Tsinghua University
According to the Russian Satellite News Agency, Mishustin said that cooperation with China in the energy field is still an unconditional priority for Russia, and the research and development of oil refining, liquefied natural gas production and transportation equipment has great potential in Russia-China cooperation.
In addition, Russia is preparing to launch new projects in the field of renewable energy with China. Shipbuilding, civilian drone production, and timber industrial complexes are promising areas of cooperation between the two countries.
Mishustin also gave specific trade figures. He said Russia and China could increase trade to $200 billion this year.
“Free from coercion by third parties”
Russian Satellite News Agency reported that Mishustin said during the meeting with Xi Jinping that Russia and China oppose attempts to maintain global dominance and use illegal sanctions to impose their will on independent countries, and will resolutely resist these dangerous attempts and create conditions for progress.
The report by China’s official Xinhua news agency made no mention of these.
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Chinese Premier Li Qiang accompanied Russian Prime Minister Mishustin to review the guard of honor of the Chinese armed forces.
When asked about concerns expressed by Western countries over the strengthening of cooperation between China and Russia, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning responded at a regular press conference on Tuesday (May 23) that the cooperation between China and Russia is neither aimed at third parties nor Interference and coercion by third parties.
“We have always opposed unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law and are not authorized by the UN Security Council,” Mao Ning said.