CHINA will support Russia’s “fundamental interests”, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a meeting in Beijing with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
China and Russia have strengthened their diplomatic and trade relations in the past decade, a trend that has accelerated since Russia launched its offensive against the former Soviet republic.
China has declared itself neutral in the conflict and has called for respect for the sovereignty of States, but has never publicly condemned the military operation ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which began in February 2022.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin arrived in China on Monday and took part in an economic forum in Shanghai on Tuesday before traveling to the capital to meet with his counterpart Li Qiang and President Xi Jinping.
He is the highest-ranking Russian official to visit the Asian giant since the invasion of Ukraine began.
China is willing for both countries to continue “firmly supporting each other on issues that affect each other’s fundamental interests,” President Xi Jinping told Mishustin, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
This type of formulation, somewhat vague, is usually used in the framework of bilateral meetings with Russian representatives and representatives of other countries, and generally refers – as far as China is concerned – to the question of the island of Taiwan.
Xi Jinping also called for “strengthening coordination in multilateral arenas such as the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS or the G20,” according to Xinhua.
For his part, Mishustin had highlighted a little earlier, along with Li Qiang, that “relations between Russia and China have reached an unprecedented level.”
“They are characterized by mutual respect for each other’s interests, the desire to respond together to challenges, related to increased turbulence on the international scene and the pressure of illegitimate sanctions by the West as a whole,” said the Russian Prime Minister after a welcome ceremony organized in front of the monumental Palace of the People, in Beijing.
China is Russia’s first trading partner. Transactions between the two countries reached 190,000 million dollars (about 176,000 million euros) in 2022, according to Chinese Customs.
On Tuesday, Li Qiang did not allow that in the first four months of this year, the amount of exchanges was already 70,000 million dollars (64,000 million euros), which represents a year-on-year growth of more than 40%.
Mikhail Mishustin traveled accompanied by several responsible Russians, such as Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, in charge of the Energy portfolio.
China became Russia’s first customer in the energy sector last year and kept Russian gas exports from collapsing, despite Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Alexander Novak stated during the Shanghai forum that Russia’s energy supplies to China have weakened by about 40% in 2023, according to Russian news agencies.
According to analysts, China, given its economic and diplomatic weight, calls the shots in its bilateral relationship with Russia, a growing increase as the international community increasingly isolates Moscow.
For Ryan Hass, an analyst at the US cabinet Brookings Institution, the leaders of Russia and China have become “closer because of grievances and concerns than because of [tener] common objectives”.
In February, the Chinese government released a document calling for a “political solution” to the conflict in Ukraine, in which the territorial integrity of all countries will be respected.
A month later, during a summit in Moscow, Xi invited Putin to Beijing./AFP