Chinese President Prepares to Welcome Russian Counterpart to China, Four Days After Hosting U.S. President

Reuters

China’s leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin exchanged “congratulatory letters” on Sunday ahead of the Russian president’s visit to Beijing this week, four days since U.S. President Donald Trump left China after a high-stakes summit.

President Xi, China’s leader, said bilateral cooperation between Russia and China had “continuously deepened and solidified”, with this year marking the 30th anniversary of the two countries’ strategic partnership, according to Chinese state media.

President Putin’s visit to Beijing is scheduled on Tuesday and Wednesday.

An article published in state media tabloid the Global Times on Monday said the visits of the U.S. and Russian presidents showed Beijing was “fast emerging as the focal point of global diplomacy”.

“The tightly sequenced visits have sparked widespread attention, with analysts noting that it is extremely rare in the post-cold war era for a country to host the leaders of the U.S. and Russia back-to-back within a week,” the Global Times said.

China and Russia’s bilateral trade has soared to record levels since 2022, with China purchasing more than one-quarter of Russia’s exports. China’s large purchases of Russian crude oil have supplied Moscow with hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue for the war in Ukraine.

Beijing has bought more than $367bn of Russian fossil fuels since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to data collected by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

The purchases have supported China’s energy security, which has become especially important since the crisis in the Middle East stopped the shipping of oil through the strait of Hormuz.

Neither the war in Ukraine, nor the Sino-Russian relationship, appeared to feature heavily in President Trump’s talks with President Xi last week. The Chinese statement about the main bilateral meeting made a brief reference to “the Ukraine crisis” while the U.S. statement did not mention it at all.

The U.S.-China talks focused on trade, Taiwan, and the war in the Middle East, with President Trump saying China agreed with him on the importance of reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

President Xi also pressed President Trump on Taiwan, warning him of the potential for conflict if the issue was not handled properly. President Trump left Beijing saying that he had not decided whether to approve a multi-billion dollar deal of U.S. weapons to Taiwan. 

Russia has been pushing China to move forward with the “Power of Siberia 2” gas pipeline that would add 50bn cubic metres of capacity to the existing network between the two countries.

Source: The Guardian



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