Xi lauds China-Russia ties as Putin lands in Beijing (updated)

Weibo

16/05/2024 24:59

(Recasts, adds quotes from Xi and Putin)
    By Bernard Orr and Guy Faulconbridge
       BEIJING/MOSCOW, May 16 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi
Jinping pledged to work with counterpart Vladimir Putin to
"rejuvenate" their countries as the pair started a day of talks
in Beijing, saying China would "always be a good partner" of
Russia, according to Chinese state media.
        Putin arrived earlier on Thursday for a two-day state
visit that will include detailed talks on Ukraine, Asia, energy
and trade with Xi, his most powerful political backer and fellow
geopolitical rival of the United States.
  
        "The China-Russia relationship today is hard-earned, and
the two sides need to cherish and nurture it," Xi told Putin as
they met at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for their
opening session.
  
       "China is willing to...jointly achieve the development
and rejuvenation of our respective countries, and work together
to uphold fairness and justice in the world."
  
        China and Russia declared a "no limits" partnership in
February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing just days before he
sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, triggering the
deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two.
    By picking China for his first foreign trip since being
sworn in for a six-year term that will keep him in power until
at least 2030, Putin is sending a message to the world about his
priorities and the strength of his personal ties with Xi.
    As they met, Putin told Xi that their co-operation was a
stabilising factor.
        "It is of crucial significance that relations between
Russia and China are not opportunistic and are not directed
against anyone," Russia's RIA Novosti news agency cited Putin as
saying.
  
         In an earlier interview with China's Xinhua news agency
before his departure, Putin praised Xi for helping to build a
"strategic partnership" with Russia based on national interests
and deep mutual trust.
    "It was the unprecedentedly high level of the strategic
partnership between our countries that determined my choice of
China as the first state that I would visit after taking office
as president," Putin said. 
    "We will try to establish closer co-operation in the fields
of industry and high technology, space and peaceful nuclear
energy, artificial intelligence, renewable energy sources and
other innovative sectors."
    Informal chats between the leaders and senior officials of
both sides to be held over tea and dinner later on Thursday are
expected to be key to the two-day trip.
    Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said those talks
would range over Ukraine, Asia, energy and trade.
    Putin's newly appointed defence minister, Andrei Belousov,
as well as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Security Council
Secretary Sergei Shoigu and Ushakov will also attend, along with
Russia's most powerful CEOs.
    It was not immediately clear if Gazprom  GAZP.MM  CEO Alexei
Miller would go to China as he was on a working visit to Iran on
Wednesday.
    
    CELEBRATION OF 75 YEARS OF TIES
    Putin, 71, and Xi, 70, will participate in a gala 
celebration of 75 years since the Soviet Union recognised the
People's Republic of China, which Mao Zedong declared in 1949.
    Xinhua confirmed Putin's arrival for a state visit and the
expected talks with Xi, while dozens of large Russian and
Chinese flags fluttered around Tiananmen Square amid police
patrols.
    Some commentaries have hailed the pair's "great power
diplomacy".
    The event is the top trending item on the Chinese social
media platform Weibo, with 1.4 million search requests.
    The United States casts China as its biggest competitor and
Russia as its biggest nation-state threat while U.S. President
Joe Biden says this century will be defined by an existential
contest between democracies and autocracies.
    Putin and Xi share a broad world view, which casts the West
as decadent and declining, just as China challenges U.S.
supremacy in everything from quantum computing and synthetic
biology to espionage and hard military power.
    Putin will also visit the northeastern city of Harbin, which
has historic ties to Russia. A mall devoted to Russian-made
goods from about 80 Russian manufacturers opened on Thursday,
the China Daily said. 
    China has strengthened trade and military ties with Russia
in recent years as the United States and its allies imposed
sanctions on both countries, particularly Moscow, for its
invasion of Ukraine.
    Western governments say China has played a crucial role in
helping Russia withstand the sanctions and has supplied key
technology that Russia has used on the battlefield in Ukraine. 
    But China, once Moscow's junior partner in the global
Communist hierarchy, is by far the most powerful of Russia's
friends globally.
    Putin's arrival follows a mission to Beijing late last month
by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in part to warn
China's top diplomat Wang Yi against deepening military support
for Russia.

 (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Bernard Orr in
Beijing; Writing by Greg Torode; Editing by  Lincoln Feast and
Clarence Fernandez)
 ((guy.faulconbridge@thomsonreuters.com; Telephone
+79856400243;))