China congratulates Moscow and highlights the “great relevance” of bilateral relations

2024-03-18 12:20:23

Of China has received Vladimir Putin las congratulations that the West has spared him. His victory, he maintains Beijing, is the “full reflection of the support of the Russian people.” The figures suggest it: he won the elections with 87% of the votes, according to the Russian state agency RIA. Happens that Brussels y Washington have remembered that some unopposed elections They are neither free nor fair but one farce and one parody.

You have overlooked those details China. “In recent years, the Russian people have united to overcome challenges and advance along the path of national development and revitalization. I am sure that, under your leadership, Russia will achieve even greater successes,” he told him. Xi Jinping to his counterpart and “old friend“, according to public television. “China attaches great importance to Sino-Russian relations and wishes to maintain communications to promote healthy, stable and deep bilateral development,” he continued.

Xi y Putin have met 42 times over the last decade, a likely record of global diplomacy. They are more than enough to support what they both define as “deep friendship.” The Chinese ambassador in Moscow, Zhang Hanhui, recently revealed that “several” meetings are planned for this year, when diplomatic relations celebrate their 75th anniversary, and it is certain that Xi will take center stage at the summit to be held by the BRICS in the Russian city of Kazan in October. The group of developing economies Since this year, it has four new members (Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates). Beijing and Moscow trust him to counteract the secular Western leadership that the G7 now represents.

Economic affinities

Putin He had praised his neighbor on Sunday and predicted a splendid future together. “The most important thing is that our state interests coincide because in international relations a good tone is created for solving problems,” he said, according to the Russian agency TASS. They are also – he added – united by the transition of the productive pattern: “The structure of the Chinese economy is shifting towards innovation, and we are executing exactly the same task.”

There was no lack of turbulence between China and the former USSR. The socialist allies were separated by geopolitics and Mao ordered his people to dig underground shelters when a dispute over some nondescript islands made him fear a nuclear attack. In recent years, however, they have enjoyed a unprecedented affinity. Western sanctions have pushed Moscow towards Beijing and the Global South.

China and Russia share their regrets about the old Western-led order and, more specifically, military movements on their borders. Their trade exchanges reached 240,000 million dollars last year when the most optimistic forecasts spoke of 200,000 million. “It is a new paradigm of relations between large countries, which differs from the obsolete mentality of the Cold War, and which does not seek an alliance, nor confrontation, nor attacks on third countries,” recently claimed the leader of Chinese diplomacy, Wang Yi. He Russian natural gas It heats Chinese homes and Chinese cars race on Russian roads, he exemplified.

Your relationship is not a blank check no matter how much Putin y Xi They spoke of a “limitless” society on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine. China has not helped Moscow in the war and has warned Putin on several occasions not to resort to nuclear weapons.

China intends to gain ground on the global stage with the probable return of Trump’s isolationism and he knows that his proximity to Russia scares Europe. It is not uncommon these days for Chinese analysts to suggest thinning ties and, perhaps for this reason, the news of Putin’s victory received surprisingly little space in the national press this Monday.