After a week of touring Europe, Wang Yi, a senior member of China’s Communist government’s Politburo arrived in Moscow Tuesday.
The former foreign minister Wang is the first Chinese official who has paid a state-visit to Russia since the invasion in Ukraine a year ago.
Russian state media reports that Wang will meet with Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, on Wednesday. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, said Monday that Wang could also meet with Vladimir Putin.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP), observed that the diplomat arrived in Moscow days after U.S. officials raised concerns about China’s continued partnership with Russia. This was also hours after Putin gave a major speech on this conflict in which he announced plans for Russia to withdraw from its last nuclear arms treaty with America.
On Wednesday, Putin stated that he had met with Wang and agreed to Xi’s visit at an unknown time.
“Everything’s progressing, developing. “We are reaching new frontiers,” Putin said to Wang.
Wang, on the other hand, praised the strengthening and growing ties between Beijing’s authoritarian governments and Moscow. These ties were further bolstered by bilateral trade that could increase from $185 billion up to $200 billion in the next year. China is Russia’s largest oil customer.
Wang stated that the partnership between Russia, China and the United States would not be subject to “pressure from third parties”, meaning the United States. This was likely meant to be an indirect dismissal of U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken’s warning to Yang Saturday that China should not provide Russia material support for the Ukraine invasion.
“We support multi-polarity in international relations and democraticization together.” Wang stated that this fully meets the history and timeliness of the world, as well as the interests of most countries.
Both the Chinese and Russian foreign ministries stated that Wang wanted to make several important agreements while he was in Moscow. However, none of these were officially announced until Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday, Wang met Nikolai Patrushev (secretary of the Russian Security Council) and stated that he expected to have more discussions on China and Russia’s mutually-related security goals.
Wang stated to Patrushev that Chinese-Russian relations were mature and can withstand any change in international circumstances.
Patrushev replied that Russia’s top priority is to develop a strategic partnership with China.
“In the context a campaign being waged by both Russia and China to contain both Russia, and China, the further strengthening of Russian-Chinese interaction and cooperation in the international arena are of particular importance,” he stated, blaming Western nations for staging “bloody events” in Ukraine to maintain Russia’s dominance.
Wang was told by he that “all that is being done against Russia, China, and to the detriment or developing nations,” he said.
Patrushev also promised Russia its “continued support to Beijing over the Taiwan, Xinjiang Tibet, and Hong Kong issues.”
