Meeting in Moscow
Xi and Putin want ‘fairer world order’
3/20/2023 5:29 am
China’s head of state Xi travels to Moscow to visit Kremlin chief Putin. Before the meeting, the two do not skimp on warm words. Relations between Beijing and Moscow are at a “high point,” Putin enthuses. Xi calls the Russian president an ‘old friend’.
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have highlighted their bilateral ties ahead of the Chinese leader’s visit to Moscow. In a guest article for the Russian newspaper “Russian Gazette”, Xi described his state visit this Monday as a “journey of friendship, cooperation and peace”. In an article for the Chinese “People’s Daily”, Putin praised China’s willingness to play a “constructive role” in ending the Ukraine conflict.
He is looking forward to enacting “a new vision” of relations with Putin, Xi wrote in the post, which was also published by China’s official news agency Xinhua. Xi described Putin as an “old friend”. It is Xi’s first visit to Moscow in almost four years.
Putin also stressed the importance of Moscow-Beijing relations in his article. Russian-Chinese relations are at a “high” and better than any political and military alliance during the Cold War, Putin wrote. He therefore has “great expectations” in the talks with Xi.
Putin: Ukraine must accept “new geopolitical realities”.
“Together with like-minded people, our countries are consistently committed to building a fairer multipolar world order, based on international law, not some ‘rules’ that only serve the interests of the ‘golden billion,'” Putin wrote. The “golden billion” refers to the rich, Western-oriented countries. Putin also accused the US of wanting to contain Russia and China.
Like Putin, Xi opposed a world order dominated by only one power in his article. “The international community sees very clearly that no one country in the world is superior to all others,” he wrote, without mentioning the United States directly.
“Russia is open to a political-diplomatic settlement of the Ukraine crisis,” Putin wrote in his post. In it, however, Putin insisted that Kiev had to recognize “new geopolitical realities” with the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and four Ukrainian regions last year. Ultimatums to Russia show that their authors are “far removed from these realities and have no interest in trying to find a solution,” the president added.
Xi wrote that a settlement of the Ukraine conflict must respect the goals and principles of the UN Charter. The “reasonable concerns of all states in the field of security” must be taken into account. All efforts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis should be supported. It is important to maintain the stability of the global production and supply chains.
China is trying to present itself as a neutral party in Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and last month unveiled a 12-point plan to end the war. Among other things, it called for dialogue and respect for the territorial sovereignty of all states. However, many Western heads of state and government do not believe this to be very credible. They accuse Beijing of silently supporting Moscow.