If the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has decided to suspend his international agenda – including a trip to Spain – due to the pressure of the Russian troops, who are making holes in the front in several places, the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, seems comfortable in the chaos from the war. The Russian leader, recently sworn in as president for the fifth time and with a tense government remodeling underway, landed before dawn this Thursday in China, where he seeks to underline the harmony with which he has become his great economic supporter and main diplomatic ally. .
During the two-day official visit, long meetings with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, are planned. It will be, as usual, and following the script of a duo that has already been seen more than 40 times, a “dialogue between old friends” and a “fruitful exchange of points of view on the most current issues on the bilateral agenda and international,” Putin said in an interview published on Tuesday in the official Chinese agency Xinhua. The last time they met, also in Beijing and seven months ago, the face to face lasted five hours.
At the meeting, a cash-strapped Putin is expected to try to reach an agreement on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, which has been in the negotiation phase for years, and would pump gas to China through Mongolia. Beijing, for its part, could seek to seal pacts that further ensure the supply of food from its neighbor. The leaders are expected to touch on such thorny issues as the eventual response to new rounds of sanctions from the West or the idea of a summer truce in the war, as Xi demanded together with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, last week in Paris.
SERGEY BOBYLEV / SPUTNIK / KREML (EFE)
The first meeting took place behind closed doors on Thursday morning (local time) in the Great Hall of the People, the building in Tiananmen Square reserved for major political events. Xi has received Putin with “sincere congratulations” for his new presidency and expressed “his conviction” that under his leadership, “Russia will undoubtedly achieve new and greater advances in national development,” according to an official statement from Beijing.
The visit falls within the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between both countries. Their relationship has experienced more than bitter periods over the decades; They have even touched war. But that was a long time ago, and Xi and Putin, aware that they need each other in the face of what they usually call Washington’s “unipolar” vision, have revitalized the bond.
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“The constant development of relations between China and Russia is not only in the fundamental interest of both countries and peoples, but also contributes to the peace, stability and prosperity of the region and the world at large,” the statement said. Beijing. In any case, the language is far from that “limitless” friendship that both leaders professed in February 2022, also during a meeting in the Chinese capital, just three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, China has avoided using an expression that arouses all kinds of suspicion in the West. But it has not stopped nurturing the relationship with Moscow.
Since the Russian tanks entered Ukraine, the harmony between China and Russia is at its zenith. With the Russian treasury in tatters due to what Beijing also continues to call “conflict” and never “war”, in addition to the bite caused by successive rounds of sanctions from Brussels and Washington, commercial exchanges between Moscow and Beijing are experiencing an idyll: They reached 240,000 million dollars (221,560 million euros) in 2023, 26.4% more than the previous year, when they had already increased by more than 34%. Mostly hydrocarbons flow from Russia; from China, all types of manufactures.
Meanwhile, suspicion is growing in Western capitals over the possible shipment of dual-use material—civil and military—that could feed Moscow’s war machine under the table. Xi, who visited Europe last week, appears to have received the message from EU leaders: “We welcome the commitments of the Chinese authorities to refrain from selling weapons to Moscow and to strictly control exports of goods.” dual-use,” said Macron, after meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Paris.
With the conflict entrenched and Ukraine in trouble due to the shortage of weapons and ammunition – the head of US diplomacy announced a new military aid package valued at 2 billion dollars (1,841 million euros) on Wednesday in kyiv – it is not expected that The meeting in Beijing represents progress in the peace talks.
Chinese proposal for Ukraine
Before landing in the Chinese capital, Putin praised China’s proposal to facilitate a negotiated solution to the conflict. It was presented more than a year ago and received with some suspicion by Washington, kyiv and Brussels. It has not borne any fruit so far. The Russian president believes, however, that Beijing’s ideas represent a step forward: “They show the genuine desire of our Chinese friends to help stabilize the situation,” he said in the interview with Xinhua.
Putin is also scheduled to meet this Thursday with the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Qiang, and attend a concert in honor of the aforementioned 75th anniversary, in addition to walking with Xi through a park and enjoying tea alone, before attending a informal dinner in which the Russian will be accompanied by his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, in addition to the newly appointed Minister of Defense, Andrei Belousov, and the dismissed, Sergei Shoigu, who is attending as the new secretary of the Russian Security Council. On Friday, Putin plans to travel to Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, a province located in northeastern China, bordering Russia, and where this country’s trail is intense, to attend the inauguration of an interregional cooperation forum.
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