The head of US diplomacy, Serguei Lavrov, arrived in Beijing on Monday ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China for a meeting of representatives of 130 countries. Lavrov will then visit North Korea on Wednesday and Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to meet with Chinese leaders in Beijing this week, in a visit that highlights China’s economic and diplomatic support for Moscow, which has been increasingly isolated due to the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s visit will be the Russian president’s first trip to a major world power since the invasion of Ukraine and is also a show of support for the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive international infrastructure project that is the centerpiece program of Russian foreign policy become. .
China sees the partnership with Russia as fundamental to countering the liberal-democratic order, at a time when its relationship with the United States is also going through a period of great tension, marked by disputes over trade and technology or disputes over rights issues. status of Hong Kong or Taiwan, and the sovereignty of the South and East China Seas.
The Russian leader is one of the key guests participating in the forum marking the tenth anniversary of the Belt and Road initiative, in which Chinese companies built, financed, ports, roads, railways, power plants and other infrastructure around the world by Chinese development banks. The program confirmed China’s status as a leader and creditor among developing countries.
Asked by journalists on Friday about the visit to China, Putin said he will talk to Chinese leaders about projects related to the Belt and Road, which Moscow plans to associate with the efforts of an economic alliance between countries of the former Soviet Union, located mainly in Central Asia, to “achieve common development goals”.
Putin also downplayed the impact of China’s economic influence in a region that Russia has long seen as its natural area of influence and where it has worked to maintain political and military hegemony.
“We have no contradictions, on the contrary, there is a certain synergy,” the Russian leader said.
Putin said he and Xi will also address growing economic and financial ties between Moscow and Beijing.
“One of the most important areas is financial relations and creating new incentives to make payments in the national currency,” Putin said. “The volume is growing rapidly, there are good prospects in high technology and the energy sector,” he said.
Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia – Eurasia Center, said that from China’s point of view, Russia is a “safe and friendly neighbor and a source of cheap raw materials, which supports Chinese initiatives on the international stage and which is also a source of military technology , part of which China does not own.”
“For Russia, China is the economic lifeline in its brutal repression against Ukraine,” Gabuev said, as quoted by the Associated Press news agency.
“It is the most important market for Russian raw materials, it is a country that provides its currency and payment system to regulate Russian trade with the outside world – with China itself, but also with many other countries. advanced technological imports, including dual-use goods entering the Russian military machine,” he described.
Gabuev said that while Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to forge a formal military alliance, their defense cooperation will increase.
“I don’t expect Russia and China to form a military alliance,” he said. “Both countries are self-sufficient in security and benefit from partnerships, but neither really needs a security guarantee from the other. Both preach strategic autonomy,” he recalled.
“But there will be closer military cooperation, more interoperability, more cooperation in the joint projection of forces, including in places like the Arctic, and more joint efforts to develop a missile defense that will support the nuclear planning of the United States and its allies in Asia and Europe more complicated,” he added.
China and the former Soviet Union were rivals during the Cold War, competing for influence among communist states. Since then, they have established partnerships in economic, military and diplomatic fields.
Just weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin and Xi declared an ‘unrestricted’ friendship in Beijing.
Beijing’s attempts to present itself as a neutral peace broker in the war have been widely rejected by the international community.
China condemned the international sanctions imposed on Russia but did not directly address the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Putin, accused of involvement in the kidnapping of thousands of children in Ukraine.
Source: DN
