China leader Xi to visit Moscow in show of support for Putin
Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Russia next week in a powerful show of support for his “best friend” Vladimir Putin as relations between Moscow and Washington reached a new low after this week’s drone debacle.
Both China and Russia have confirmed the planned visit, with the Kremlin saying that Xi will be staying in Moscow from Monday to Wednesday at Putin’s “invitation.”
It will be Xi’s first foreign trip since he locked down a third term as China’s leader, and also his first meeting with Putin since the start of the Ukraine war, now in its second year.
Xi’s high-profile trip to Moscow is viewed as a boon to Putin after Russia found itself isolated from much of the world over the invasion of Ukraine.
Just weeks before the war, Beijing and Moscow struck a “no limits” partnership — and China has yet to condemn Russia for attacking Ukraine, or even refer to the conflict as an “invasion.”
The US and other European leaders have said they are growing increasingly concerned China may send lethal arms to Russia – a claim Beijing has strongly denied, while criticizing Western countries for supplying tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Kyiv, which will soon include fighter jets.
China’s foreign ministry said Xi’s visit next week is aimed at deepening trust between Beijing and Moscow, while the Kremlin said it would strengthen ties between the two nations.
According to a schedule released by the Kremlin Friday, Putin and Xi will start with a one-on-one meeting Monday, followed by an “informal lunch,” with negotiations between the two leaders set to take place the next day.
“During the talks, topical issues of further development of comprehensive partnership relations and strategic cooperation between Russia and China will be discussed,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“An exchange of views is also planned in the context of deepening Russian-Chinese cooperation in the international arena,” Peskov added.
“A number of important bilateral documents” would be signed during Xi and Putin’s meeting, Russian officials said, without elaborating.
China expressed concern about the war intensifying after an American MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone intercepted by Russian fighter jets crashed into the Black Sea three days ago, in the first known direct US-Russia confrontation.
Beijing has called for peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv, but Russia says Ukraine must accept the loss of five of its regions as a precondition for any negotiations.
Ukraine says Russian troops must withdraw beyond its 1991 borders — the year the Soviet Union dissolved.
It has been reported that Xi would hold a telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after his trip to Russia, but Beijing has yet to confirm the call.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Friday that Xi should use the visit to encourage Putin to withdraw his troops from Ukraine.
“If China wants to play a genuine role in restoring sovereignty to Ukraine, then we would obviously welcome that,” the spokesperson told reporters.
“We’re clear that any peace deal which is not predicated on Ukraine’s sovereignty and self-determination is not a peace deal at all. So we will continue to call on China, as we have done before, to join other countries across the world in calling on Putin to withdraw his troops.”
Last month, Xi, who has been trying to position himself as a peace broker – all the while maintaining close relations with Putin whom he once called his “best friend” – released a 12-point peace proposal, which was widely dismissed as an attempt to shift blame for the war away from Russia and onto NATO.
During a press conference on the first anniversary of the war, Zelensky cautiously welcomed Beijing’s “position paper” on the crisis.
On Thursday, China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, spoke to his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, saying China hoped “Ukraine and Russia will retain hope for dialogue and negotiation and not close the door to a political solution, no matter how difficult and challenging it may be”, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.
Kuleba later tweeted that he and Qin “discussed the significance of the principle of territorial integrity.”
With Post wires
