The meeting was closely scrutinized by the international community. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov received his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Wednesday February 22, while the United States warned earlier this week against the possibility of a delivery of Chinese weapons to Moscow in as part of its offensive in Ukraine.
In the preamble to the meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin assured that the Russian-Chinese relationship “stabilized the international situation”, while the head of Chinese diplomacy promised to “continue its efforts to strengthen and deepen” these reports. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been consolidated since the end of the Cold War, despite the reservation displayed by the Beijing regime on possible military support for the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Sino-Russian friendship treaty
After several decades of regional rivalry marked by the 1969 Sino-Soviet war, relations between China and Russia improved considerably after the end of the Cold War. As early as 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev went to Beijing to establish a relationship with emerging China in the face of American power.
As a sign of this rapprochement, the two countries formalized a strategic partnership in 1996, followed by a treaty of“friendship and cooperation”, five years later. They even undertake in 2008, in a joint press release by Hu Jintao and Dmitri Medvedev, to support each other on issues related to their “fundamental interests”.
Relations between the two countries seem to be at their highest during the first trip of the new Chinese head of state, Xi Jinping, who goes to Moscow in 2012. “ Strong relations between China and Russia not only serve our interests, but also constitute an important and reliable guarantee of international strategic balance and peace.», he affirmed then, Vladimir Poutine qualifying in return Beijing of ally ».
“Common Front” on the international scene
This diplomatic understanding is also embodied in the unity they display within international institutions. China and Russia are the two countries that have used their right of veto the most in the UN Security Council since the creation of the body, i.e. 118 times in all, including 14 times together since 2007. example, both opposed the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and refused, in 2012, condemnation of the bloody repression in Syria.
The two countries also cooperate within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), created in 2001, which includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, then India, Pakistan and Iran.
From a report of ” good neighborhood “, the Sino-Russian relationship has gradually become, in recent years, a “constructive cooperation” and even a “strategic partnership”, according to researchers Alexander Korolev and Vladimir Portyakov (1), particularly in a context of bilateral deterioration in the relations of each of the two countries with the United States.
Diplomatic support without military support
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not appear to have weakened this understanding, although China did not openly support Moscow in the UN vote condemning the launch of the offensive on March 2, 2022. Beijing s was indeed abstained, as in 2014 during the annexation of Crimea by Moscow.
However, since the start of the conflict, China has provided diplomatic and financial support without providing military support or speaking out against international sanctions against Russia, while Moscow depends on Beijing to export its raw materials, in particular .
In September 2022, during their first meeting since the start of the war, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping once again showed their desire to support each other and strengthen their ties. Beijing should this week publish its “political solution” to the conflict, as the regime tries to position itself as a mediator between Russia and the West.