Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, have begun bilateral talks in Beijing on the eve of a massive military parade in the Chinese capital. Relations between the countries were at an “unprecedented level”, Putin said.
According to a video published on the Kremlin’s official Telegram messaging app, Putin told Xi: “Dear friend, it’s always a pleasure to meet you again, with our Chinese friends and colleagues, and the whole Russian delegation.”
Strengthened communication demonstrates that Russian-Chinese relations are at a new, never-before-seen height, he continued. Before that, we were always together, and we are still together now.
Xi told Vladimir Putin that ”China-Russia relations have stood the test of international changes, noting that Beijing was willing to cooperate with Moscow on ”promoting the construction of a more just and reasonable global governance system.
On Wednesday, Xi will preside over the largest military parade ever to be held in China to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s wartime surrender in China. Xi visited Moscow in May for Russia’s commemoration of defeating the Nazis.
Amid Xi’s desire to demonstrate that Beijing can be more than just an economic rival at No. 2 — the world’s largest economy — this week’s meetings are taking place.
This is something Xi has done in his home country of China, as once stable trading relationships around the world have been rocked by tariffs initiated by US President Donald Trump.
Donald Trump still hasn’t landed any kind of arrangement with the Russian leader to end the war in Ukraine, but Xi’s invitation for Vladimir Putin to visit Beijing reveals how tight the two are. The two have previously described their countries’ relationship as a “limitless friendship”.
During the summit on Monday, Xi and Vladimir Putin both took aim at Western governments, with Xi denouncing “bullying” from certain nations — a clear reference to the US — while Putin attempted to justify Russia’s Ukraine offensive, blaming the West for instigating the war.
CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster, reported that the two leaders met on Tuesday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The discussions came after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit that Xi hosted in the nearby port city of Tianjin on Sunday and Monday, during which he called on members to “oppose Cold War thinking, bloc confrontation and bullying behaviour”.
Speaking at the summit also attended by Indian, Iranian, and Pakistani leaders, Putin said it had “deeply rooted the foundations” for a new system to succeed “obsolete Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models.”
At a military parade on Wednesday, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un will also visit China for the first time since taking power, and he arrived in his special train at a border town early on Tuesday.
It is Kim’s first multilateral, international summit. This is also the first time that a North Korean leader is attending a Chinese military parade for decades -the last visit was made by Kim’s grandfather, the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-Sung, in 1959.
Most Western leaders are not expected to attend the parade because of their refusal to accept Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the impetus for the sanctions on his regime.
But Vladimir Putin’s war has not been condemned by Beijing. Through its provision of dual-use goods and purchase of Russian oil, it has been charged by the US and its allies to be supporting Russia’s war effort — a charge that Beijing denies. Ukrainska Pravda: Kim provided both arms and soldiers for the Russian invasion.
