China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Wednesday praised progress in their “comprehensive partnership” and criticised U.S. President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome project, but did not announce any breakthrough on a planned gas pipeline.
Xi welcomed Putin in Beijing with a ceremonial guard of honour and gun salute at the Great Hall of the People, where children waved Chinese and Russian flags ahead of a scheduled tea ceremony.
China-Russia Relations
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, China initially became a junior partner to the Soviet Union, but ties later collapsed during the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s. Relations improved after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and have deepened since, with China now the dominant partner economically.
China is by far Russia’s biggest trading partner, with around $240 billion in trade, according to Russian figures and China is the biggest purchaser of Russian crude. Russia is China’s fifth largest trading partner after the United States, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, according to the Kremlin.
Trump has said previous U.S. administrations made a major mistake by allowing Russia and China to align.
Outcomes Of Visit
Receiving both Trump and Putin within a week underscores the power of both Xi and the rising China that he has ruled since 2012.
The Kremlin said it was important to look at the content of the two visits rather than the ceremonial aspects, adding that not everything was visible on the surface.
Trump left China on Friday with no major breakthroughs on trade or tangible help from Beijing to end the Iran war, despite two days spent heaping praise on his host, Xi Jinping.
After the Putin-Xi talks, a 9,935-word joint statement, which touched on nuclear security, Taiwan, and even Amur tigers, giant pandas and golden snub-nosed monkeys, was signed alongside a shorter joint declaration.
Another 20 documents ranging from sanitary norms and state news to nuclear energy were inked. As of writing, no major deals between Russia and China had been clinched.
Russia hopes to power its flagship GigaChat AI model with Chinese-made chips, Sberbank CEO German Gref said as Western sanctions continue to block Russia’s access to advanced hardware abroad.
Siberia 2 Natural Gas Pipeline
The Kremlin said that a general understanding with China on their joint Power of Siberia 2 natural gas pipeline had been reached but key details and a timetable for the vast project still needed to be agreed.
Russia and China have been in talks for years over the pipeline, which would bring gas to China via Mongolia from Russia’s natural gas heartland in northern Siberia, as pricing and other issues remain elusive.
Russia and China said in a joint statement that U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defence system threatens strategic stability and criticised Washington for not working on a replacement for a key nuclear arms treaty.
(With inputs from Reuters)
