Beijing — Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Chinese leader Xi Jinping for his efforts to resolve the war in Ukraine at a Beijing summit on Thursday, where the two leaders reaffirmed a “no-limits” partnership that has grown as both countries face rising tension with the West.
Putin’s two-day state visit to one of his strongest allies came as his country’s forces press an offensive in northeast Ukraine’s Kharkiv region – the most significant border incursion since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
The largely symbolic visit stressed the growing partnership between two countries that both face challenges in their relationships with the U.S. and Europe.
“Both sides want to show that despite what is happening globally, despite the pressure that both sides are facing from the U.S., both sides are not about to turn their backs on each other anytime soon,” said Hoo Tiang Boon, a professor who studies Chinese foreign policy at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
Talk of peace in Ukraine, but no proposals
While both leaders said they were seeking an end to the war in Ukraine, they offered no new specifics in their public remarks Thursday afternoon. China has significant influence as a key supporter of Russia, both before and since its invasion. The country claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed Moscow’s contentions that Russia was provoked into attacking Ukraine by the West, and continues to supply Russia with key components that Moscow needs for its productions of weapons.
China proposed a broadly worded peace plan in 2023, but it was rejected by both Ukraine and the West for failing to call for Russia to leave occupied parts of Ukraine.
“China hopes for the early return of Europe to peace and stability and will continue to play a constructive role toward this,” Xi said, speaking alongside Putin.
Putin said he would inform the Chinese leader in detail about “the situation in Ukraine,” and said “we appreciate the initiative of our Chinese colleagues and friends to regulate the situation.”
The two-year-old war has entered a critical stage with Russia’s new offensive in Ukraine. Kyiv’s depleted military is still waiting for new supplies of anti-aircraft missiles and artillery shells from the United States after months of delay.
On the eve of the visit, Putin said in an interview with Chinese media that the Kremlin was prepared to negotiate over the conflict in Ukraine, “but such negotiations must take into account the interests of all countries involved in the conflict, including ours.”
Putin said the Chinese proposal rejected by Ukraine last year could “lay the groundwork for a political and diplomatic process that would take into account Russia’s security concerns and contribute to achieving a long-term and sustainable peace.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said any negotiations must include a restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops, the release of all prisoners, a tribunal for those responsible for the aggression and security guarantees for Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader warned recently in an interview with CBS News that if the U.S. and NATO fail to help his military stop Putin’s advance, Russia could bring his war directly “to Europe, and to the United States” as NATO’s biggest member.
China and Russia’s growing “no-limits” relationship
Before their remarks, the two leaders signed a joint statement on deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership between their nations on their 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties. Xi said China and Russia would continue to uphold a position of non-alliance and non-confrontation.
The two autocratic countries — which two years ago suggested they were working together to offer a new “democratic world order” — also said in their joint statement Thursday that they would continue to consider the negative impact of the U.S. and NATO’s strategy in the Asia-Pacific.
China has been increasingly assertive in its claims to a number of contested territories in the region recently, with tension between Beijing and the U.S. focused sharply on the future of the democratically governed island of Taiwan, just of China’s east coast. Xi has vowed to assert Chinese control over the island, which the U.S. is bound by law to help defend, and he has never ruled out using force.
Thursday’s meeting was yet another affirmation of the friendly “no limits” relationship the two leaders formalized in 2022, just before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, Russia has become increasingly economically dependent on China as Western sanctions cut Moscow’s access to much of the international trading system. China’s increased trade with Russia, totaling $240 billion last year, has helped the country mitigate some of the worst blowback from sanctions.
Moscow has diverted the bulk of its energy exports to China and relies on Chinese companies for imports of high-tech components for its military industries — to circumvent Western sanctions.
“I and President Putin agree, we should actively look for convergence points of the interests of both countries, to develop each’s advantages, and deepen integration of interests, realizing each others’ achievements,” Xi said.
Russia-China military ties have also strengthened over the last few years. They’ve held a series of joint war games, including naval drills and patrols by long-range bombers over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea.
China remains a major market for Russian military hardware, while Beijing is also massively expanding its domestic defense industries, including building aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.
Putin has previously said Russia has been sharing highly sensitive military technologies with China that helped significantly bolster its defense capability. In October 2019, he mentioned that Russia was helping China to develop an early warning system to spot ballistic missile launches – a system involving ground-based radar and satellites that only Russia and the U.S. possessed.
China’s backing will be crucial to President Vladimir V. Putin as he intensifies his offensive in Ukraine. But his host, Xi Jinping, has other competing priorities.
Xi Jinping greeted President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in a show of solidarity at the start of a two-day state visit.CreditCredit…Sergei Guneyev/Sputnik
Published May 15, 2024Updated May 16, 2024, 12:51 a.m. ET
When China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, hosts President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia this week, the two leaders are expected to present a united front. But they have different agendas.
Mr. Putin is trying to escalate his war in Ukraine before Ukrainian forces can receive a replenishment of arms from the United States, and probably wants to know he can rely on China. Mr. Xi will seek to bolster his strategic partner and “old friend,” but he is also under pressure to avoid further alienating the West over his support for Russia.
Those priorities are the backdrop of Mr. Putin’s two-day state visit, which began in Beijing on Thursday and will include a trip to the northeastern city of Harbin, where a China-Russia trade fair is being held.
Mr. Putin will most likely seek more help from Beijing, which has provided a lifeline to the Kremlin ever since Western sanctions were imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. China purchases huge quantities of Russian oil and provides technologies that help Moscow withstand its economic isolation and sustain its war machine.
Mr. Xi considers Russia an important counterweight in China’s rivalry with the United States, but he risks alienating Europe, a key trading partner, at a time when China is relying on exports to revive its sluggish economy.
Here is what to know about the summit.
The visit is Mr. Putin’s first foreign trip since winning his fifth presidential election in March. Mr. Xi showed the same respect to Mr. Putin when he made Russia his first foreign trip after securing his norm-shattering third term as China’s president in March 2023.
Mr. Xi has met with Mr. Putin over 40 times, including virtually, which is more than any other leader. The two men have cast their relationship as deeply personal by exchanging birthday greetings and referring to each other as “old” and “dear” friends.
In Mr. Putin, Mr. Xi sees a like-minded autocratic leader who blames the United States for holding back his country’s rise. The two leaders declared a “no limits” partnership weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in 2022, to push back against what they consider American hegemony.
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In a photograph provided by Russian state media, Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin toasted during a dinner at the Kremlin in Moscow in 2023.Credit…Pavel Byrkin/Sputnik
Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin also view themselves as architects of a new world order free of U.S. interference. The two leaders have promoted multilateral groupings of developing countries like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, so named because it includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, as a way to counterbalance the West.
Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin will most likely try to project strength and solidarity during their summit to demonstrate to other countries that there is an alternative to the U.S.-led global system.
“Russia-China relations have reached an all-time high, and even in the face of severe international situations, relations between the two countries continue to strengthen,” Mr. Putin said in an interview with Chinese state media published on Wednesday.
China has vowed not to provide lethal weapons to Russia, but the United States and Western analysts say China has been aiding Russia with satellite intelligence and fighter jet parts as well as supplying components with both civilian and military uses, such as microchips, machine tools, optical devices, electronic sensors and telecommunications gear.
Mr. Putin will most likely want any such supply of parts and equipment to continue, to help sustain his military’s advances as he intensifies the war effort.
Russian forces opened a new line of attack in recent days near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Ukraine’s forces are stretched thin and running short on weapons, but billions of dollars’ worth of arms from the United States are expected to trickle in soon.
Mr. Putin is also expected to seek more trade and business deals and is traveling with a large delegation. Included are five deputy prime ministers; the heads of Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear power company, and Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency; as well as Sergey V. Lavrov, the foreign minister; Maksim Reshetnikov, the economy minister; and Andrei R. Belousov, an economist who was named the new defense minister this week.
“The people involved reflect the priorities of both sides,” said Elizabeth Wishnick, a senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses in Virginia who studies Chinese foreign policy.
Mr. Belousov has experience working with China, having previously been co-chair of the Intergovernmental Russian-Chinese Commission on Investment Cooperation, which was founded in 2014 to promote more trade between the two countries.
And among the deputy prime ministers traveling with Mr. Putin is Alexander Novak, a key official for Russian oil and gas, including the development of the Power of Siberia 2 natural gas pipeline. Mr. Putin has long sought to cement an agreement on the project, which would redirect Russian gas supplies that had gone to Europe toward China instead.
It is unclear whether Mr. Xi is interested in the pipeline. Analysts say the Chinese leader could be reluctant because it would travel through a third country, Mongolia, and that it could expose China to potential secondary sanctions and leave it even more reliant on Russia for energy.
Mr. Xi has tried to align with Russia and steady ties with the West at the same time to help his ailing economy, an approach that some call a strategic straddle.
China casts itself as neutral on the war in Ukraine and as a proponent of peace. It has offered a vague, 12-point plan for a political settlement of the war and sent an envoy to conduct shuttle diplomacy in Europe.
Western countries have dismissed China’s efforts because they do not call for a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. China also sides with Russia by blaming the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for creating the tensions that led to Moscow’s invasion.
Mr. Xi’s refusal to condemn the Kremlin’s war has ultimately worsened China’s relations with the West, and it has led to Europe’s growing alignment with the United States on security issues. This makes China’s efforts to head off a trade war with the European Union — over exports of Chinese electric vehicles and market access for European companies — harder for Mr. Xi.
President Biden with Mr. Xi during a meeting in California in November, when the two struck a tentative détente. Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Tensions are also rising with the United States, testing a tentative détente struck by President Biden and Mr. Xi in November. The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a sharp increase in tariffs on an array of Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, solar cells, semiconductors and advanced batteries.
During a visit to Beijing last month, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned that the United States would blacklist Chinese banks aiding Russia’s war effort. Russian media reported earlier in the year that Chinese financial institutions had already begun scaling back transactions with Russian firms over concerns about secondary sanctions. Analysts say the change most likely contributed to the drop in year-on-year trade between Russia and China in March, the first such decline since January 2021, according to Chinese customs data.
