For Those Who Still Had Doubts, Xi Jinping Has Just Confirmed Once Again His Support for Putin.
The ties between China and Russia will even deepen in the future.
On the eve of the trip to Kyiv on Thursday, June 16, 2022, of Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, and Mario Draghi, the leaders of France, Germany, and Italy, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, reaffirmed his support for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
The two men had their second telephone conversation on Wednesday, June 15, 2022, since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The first exchange took place the day after the offensive, on February 25, 2022. Xi Jinping, on the other hand, has never phoned the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, since the beginning of the war.
According to Chinese media reports, Xi Jinping said the following during the summit telephone exchange:
“Economic and trade cooperation between the two countries has made steady progress. China is ready to work with Russia to continue to support each other on their respective core interests regarding sovereignty and security, as well as on their major concerns.”
According to press reports, the two men also discussed Ukraine. The Chinese president recalled that his country exercises “independent judgment” and is committed to “promoting world peace”. For his part, Vladimir Putin supported the “global security initiative”, a concept recently launched by Xi Jinping, and opposed any interference in China's internal affairs, “including Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan”.
If this exchange does not bring much new, it confirms the good understanding between the two countries but also between the two men. June 15, 2022, corresponds to the 69th birthday of Xi Jinping. Already, in 2013, 2018, and 2019, the two leaders had called or met on this occasion.
This also reaffirms what we have known since February 2022: China and Russia are indeed in a “limitless partnership”. The two countries have an interest in putting up a common front against the West, and more particularly against America, against which China opposes itself in the Indo-Pacific area in an increasingly frank manner.
Xi Jinping reaffirms that China-Russia cooperation will strengthen in the coming months and years
As the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party looms at the end of 2022, Xi Jinping is walking a very narrow ridge. He wants at all costs to avoid suffering the same economic sanctions as Russia. His country, therefore, gives the impression of aligning itself with the West's economic sanctions against Russia, while at the same time saying that it disapproves of them to respect the word given to Putin in February 2022.
Behind this official posture, China continues to advance unofficially in strengthening its ties with Russia. The two countries have discreetly inaugurated, on June 10, 2022, the first cross-border highway bridge, which spans the Amur River to connect the cities of Heihe and Blagoveshchensk.
Xi Jinping then made a video intervention on June 17, 2022, at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, boycotted by most Westerners. Xi Jinping welcomed the strengthening of trade with Putin's Russia:
“Today our cooperation between Russia and China is rising. Trade over the first half of this year has been in the tens of billions of U.S. dollars and we can expect new records in upcoming months, which is a testament to the great cooperation between our two nations.”
The two leaders, who on February 4, 2022, concluded an important joint declaration “on the entry of international relations into a new era,” will most likely reaffirm their friendship at the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit that Beijing is hosting at the end of June 2022, at the same time as a NATO summit in Spain - a summit that will be attended for the first time by a Japanese prime minister.
On May 24, 2022, while U.S. President Joe Biden was in Japan, China and Russia conducted a joint air patrol over the China Sea and the Sea of Japan for several hours. A demonstration qualified as “provocation” by Tokyo. It was the first joint Sino-Russian military exercise since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
Final Thoughts
The world has entered a new era with this war in Ukraine triggered by Putin's Russia. The decoupling between America and China will continue to grow in the future with a separation into two blocks: that of the Westerners behind America with Japan and Australia as well, and that of the emerging countries behind the Moscow-Beijing axis.
To these countries, you can add India, Pakistan, and Iran. If these countries do not necessarily get along wonderfully well together, they all share a common desire: to no longer have to submit to the will of America and the West in general.
Some reading
Bitcoin Plunges to $20K, Total Panic in the Market — Here Is the Only Question You Need to Answer. Why do some people keep accumulating more and more BTC?
For Stock Market Investors — How Long Does the Average Bear Market Last? History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes.
KISS Is the Secret the Rich People Apply to Make Big Profits When Investing. The hardest part is not understanding this secret but patiently applying it.