TAIPIE, Taiwan (AP) — In a visit that highlights Beijing’s economic and diplomatic support for Moscow during its conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is anticipated to meet with Chinese leaders this week in Beijing.
Due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, the two nations’ informal alliance against the US and other democratic countries has become more problematic. China has made an effort to strike a balance between its relations with Israel and its close economic ties with Russia-strongly supported Iran and Syria.
Additionally, Putin’s trip is a demonstration of support for China’s president Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative, which aims to develop infrastructure and increase China’s global influence.
The Russian president will be one of the most well-known attendees at a celebration honoring Xi’s announcement of the policy 10 years ago. As a result of signing contracts with Chinese companies to construct roads, airports, and other public works that they otherwise could not afford, nations like Zambia and Sri Lanka are now heavily indebted.
Although Putin’s arrival has not been officially announced, Chinese authorities have indicated that he will arrive on Monday night.
Asked by reporters Friday about a visit to China, Putin said it would encompass talks on Belt and Road-related projects, which he said Moscow wants to link with efforts taken by an economic alliance of ex-Soviet Union nations mostly located in Central Asia to “achieve common development goals.” He also downplayed the impact of China’s economic influence in a region that Russia has long considered its backyard and where it has worked to maintain political and military clout.
There are no contradictions present here; rather, there is some synergy, according to Putin.
According to Putin, he and Xi will also talk about the expanding financial and economic connections between Moscow and Beijing.
Financial interactions and increasing incentives for payments made in national currencies are two important areas, according to Putin. “The volume is increasing quickly, and the high-tech and energy sectors both have promising futures.”
Director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, Alexander Gabuev, stated that from China’s perspective, “Russia is a safe neighbor that is friendly, that is a source of cheap raw materials, that is a support for Chinese initiatives on the global stage, and that is also a source of military technologies, some of which China does not have.”
“For Russia, China is its lifeline, its lifeline economically in its brutal repression against Ukraine,” Gabuev told The Associated Press.
“It’s a country that provides its currency and payment system to settle Russia’s trade with the outside world — with China itself, as well as with many other countries, and it’s also the major source of sophisticated technological imports, including dual use goods that go into the Russian military apparatus,” the author writes.
Gabuev predicted that although a formal military alliance between Moscow and Beijing is unlikely, their defense cooperation will advance.
I don’t anticipate a military partnership between Russia and China, said Gabuev. “Both nations are self-sufficient in terms of security, and they gain from collaboration, but none truly needs the other to provide a security guarantee. They also advocate strategic autonomy.
“There will be no military alliance, but there will be closer military cooperation, more interoperability, more cooperation on projecting force together, including in places like the Arctic, and more joint effort to develop a missile defense that makes the U.S. nuclear planning and planning of the U.S. and its allies in Asia and in Europe more complicated,” he continued.
Former Cold War adversaries China and the Soviet Union for influence among left-leaning nations have since collaborated in the fields of diplomacy, economics, and the military. Putin and Xi met in Beijing just a few weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February, and the two signed an agreement pledging a “no-limits” relationship. Beijing’s efforts to portray itself as a neutral peace broker in Russia’s war on Ukraine have been widely criticized by the international community.
In March, Xi traveled to Moscow as part of a flurry of communications between the parties. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin on suspicion of his alleged complicity in the kidnapping of thousands of children from Ukraine, but China has not specifically criticised the penalties that have been placed on Russia. Info source-AP News