Beijing-El President Chino, Xi Jinping, said his association of “no limits” on Monday in a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese state media reported, on the third anniversary of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine of Russia .
The leaders held the conversations when President Donald Trump has pressed for a quick agreement to end the Ukraine War, which increases the possibility that Washington can make a gap between Xi and Putin to concentrate on competing with the second economy plus Great world.
The call seemed aimed at dissipating such perspectives: the two leaders underlined the “long -term” durability and nature of their alliance, with their own internal dynamics that would not be affected by any “third.”
“Relations with China-Russia have a strong internal driving force and a unique strategic value, and are not directed, nor are they influenced by a third party,” XI said, according to the official reading published by the Chinese state media.
“The development strategies and foreign policies of China and Russia are long term,” XI said, added that the two countries “are good neighbors that cannot be separated.”
Russia, war pound against Ukrainian forces supplied by NATO, and China, under pressure from a concerted effort of the United States to counteract its growing military and economic force, have increasingly found a common geopolitical cause.
Xi told Putin in recent years that the two have the opportunity to promote “changes that the world has not seen in a century”, that many analysts see as an attempt to challenge a global order led by the United States.
China and Russia declared a strategic association “without limits” days before Putin sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in February 2022. XI has gathered Putin more than 40 times in the last decade and Putin in recent months described To China as an ally.
“The Russians will see which Trump carrots can hang to create distance between Moscow and Beijing, but they trust that they can keep the pragmatic and beneficial ties with China and involve the United States if Trump is really willing to play ball,” said Alexander Gabuev , director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
Trump has alarmed Washington European allies when leaving them and Ukraine outside the conversations with Russia held last week in Saudi Arabia and blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion in 2022.
Putin also informed Xi “about recent American Russian contacts,” according to a Kremlin statement.
XI said that China was “pleased to see the positive efforts made by Russia and all the parties concerned with calming the crisis”, pointing out China’s initiatives, such as the creation of a group of nations called “Friends of Peace.”
These efforts have focused on portraying China as a neutral peacemaker, but critics say they lack substance because the West accuses China of supporting Russia’s war effort through supplies of double -use goods and mass purchases of oil and Russian gas.
China has denied that it supports Russia’s military-industrial base. China’s main diplomat, Wang Yi, said at the Munich Security Conference last week that China would not stop buying Russia’s gas because doing so would make China insecure.
Instead, XI has ordered the bureaucrats to study Trump’s policies and respond to their initial tariffs and threats, since the economy with difficulties from China with high youth unemployment is poorly located to resist another commercial war with Washington.
This was the second call that both leaders have celebrated this year, after discussing how to build ties with Trump in January.
Gabuev said that “the fact that both parties did it on the third anniversary of the war only tells you how robust this association has become.”
The two parties also discussed the preparations for the commemoration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. Earlier this month, XI accepted Russia’s invitation to attend the event in May.
