Chinese leader Xi Jinping and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin have signalled a united front against Washington during a summit in Beijing, warning against a global return to the “law of the jungle”.
In a joint statement, China and Russia took aim at US President Donald Trump’s plans for a $175bn “Golden Dome” defence system, which would create a new missile field in the Midwest.
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The duo also criticised the expiry of the last US-Russia arms control treaty, which fell to the wayside in February when Trump failed to respond to Moscow’s proposal to extend it by a year.
Wednesday’s summit – which came a week after Xi hosted Trump in Beijing – kicked off with fanfare in the Chinese capital, complete with a red carpet and a military band playing both the Chinese and Russian national anthems.
In their opening remarks, the leaders emphasised strengthening ties and cooperation between Russia and China amid an increasingly fractured world order.
“Even against the backdrop of unfavourable external factors, our interaction and economic cooperation demonstrate strong momentum,” Russian media reported Putin telling Xi.
Xi meanwhile lauded the “unyielding relationship” between China and Russia.
“We have been able to continuously deepen our political mutual trust and strategic coordination with a resilience that remains unyielding despite trials and tribulations,” Xi said.
The Chinese leader also addressed the United States-Israeli war on Iran, telling his Russian counterpart that further conflict was “inadvisable” and a ceasefire was necessary.
“A comprehensive ceasefire is of utmost urgency, resuming hostilities is even more inadvisable and maintaining negotiations is particularly important,” Xi said.
A separate joint statement advised that “there is a danger of fragmentation of the international community and a return to the ‘law of the jungle’”.
“Attempts by a number of states to unilaterally manage global affairs, impose their interests on the entire world, and limit the sovereign development of other countries, in the spirit of the colonial era, have failed,” the statement added.
Energy talks
Among the chief topics of discussion was the energy sector, which Putin called the “driving force of economic cooperation” in Russian-Chinese relations.
China asserted itself as a major buyer of Russian oil and trading partner after Western countries largely cut economic ties with Moscow in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said that while the two leaders planned to sign some 40 agreements covering everything from the economy and tourism to education, energy security remained Putin’s priority.
“Since the war in Ukraine, any gas sales that were previously heading to Europe, that is all dried up, and Russia is in desperate need of revenue to replace that,” she said.
The talks did not lead to a new consensus on a long-discussed gas pipeline known as Power of Siberia 2, however.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media that the two sides had reached a “basic understanding” on the pipeline, including its route, but that there was no “clear timeline” for a buildout.
Xi said that cooperation in energy and resource connectivity should be the “ballast stone” between the two countries, but did not mention the pipeline.
‘Sovereign foreign policy’
Although they received the same red-carpet welcome ceremony, Putin’s visit has so far contrasted sharply with Trump’s trip last week
The Russian president is marking 25 years of the Sino-Russian friendship and has visited China dozens of times, meeting with Xi on more than 40 other occasions.
“So this visit will really be about deepening existing coordination and cooperation,” Al Jazeera’s Yu said.
Putin pledged on Wednesday that Russia and China would pursue an “independent and sovereign” foreign policy programme together to play a “stabilising role on the global stage”.
Xi, for his part, said Beijing and Moscow had deepened “political mutual trust and strategic cooperation” in a world that is “increasingly chaotic” and where “hegemony is overwhelming”.
The comments made it clear that “Beijing and Moscow share a depth of established trust that simply does not exist between China and the US”, Yu said.
At the same time, “Xi is calling for a more multipolar world, where the US has less power and influence”, she added.
Putin is being accompanied by a large delegation of Russian businesspeople and government leaders.
In a video address released before meeting Xi, Putin said Russia and China were prepared to cooperate with each other on the “core interests of the two countries, including the protection of sovereignty and national unity”.
“We are not aligning against anyone, but working for the cause of peace and universal prosperity,” Putin said.