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, increasingly isolated due to the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s visit is also a show of support for the Belt and Road Initiative, a gigantic international infrastructure project that has become Beijing’s main foreign policy program.
China sees the partnership with Russia as essential 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 human rights issues. the status of Hong Kong or Taiwan, and the sovereignty of the South and East China Seas.
The Russian leader is one of the most important guests at the forum marking the 10th anniversary of the “Belt and Road” initiative, under which Chinese companies built ports, roads, railway lines, power plants and other infrastructure across the world, financed by Chinese development banks. The program cemented China’s status as a leader and creditor among developing countries.
The schedule of Putin’s visit has not been confirmed, but Chinese officials have suggested that the Russian leader will arrive in Beijing this Monday.
Asked by reporters on Friday about the visit to China, Putin said he will speak with Chinese leaders about projects related to the Belt and Road, which Moscow intends to associate with efforts undertaken by an economic alliance between nations of the former Soviet Union. mainly located 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 considered 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,” said the Russian leader.
Putin said he and Xi will also address growing economic and financial ties between Moscow and Beijing.
“One of the key areas is financial relations and creating new incentives to make payments in national currency,” Putin said. “The volume is growing rapidly, there are good prospects in high-tech areas and in 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 neighboring country and a source of cheap raw materials, which supports Chinese initiatives on the international stage and also “It is a source of military technology, some of which China does not possess.”
“For Russia, China is the economic lifeline in its brutal repression against Ukraine,” Gabuev said, quoted by the Associated Press news agency.
“It is the main market for Russian raw materials, it is a country that provides its currency and its payment system to regulate Russia’s trade with the outside world, with China itself, but also with many other countries, and it is also the main source of sophisticated technological imports, including dual-use goods that enter 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 create a military alliance,” he said. “Both countries are self-sufficient in terms of security and benefit from partnerships, but neither of them really demands a security guarantee from the other. Both preach strategic autonomy,” she recalled.
“But there will be closer military cooperation, more interoperability, more cooperation in joint force projection, including in places like the Arctic, and more joint efforts to develop missile defense that makes nuclear planning by the United States and its allies in Asia and Europe is more complicated,” he added.
China and the former Soviet Union were rivals during the Cold War and competed for influence among communist states. Since then, they have established partnerships in the economic, military and diplomatic spheres.
Just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin and Xi declared an “unlimited” friendship in Beijing.
Beijing’s attempts to present itself as a neutral peace mediator 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 arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Putin, accused of participating in the kidnapping of thousands of children in Ukraine.
Source: TSF
