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Moscow has actively sought to boost economic cooperation with Beijing after sweeping Western sanctions.
Russia and China conducted joint naval drills last week, which Russia’s defense chief Valery Gerasimov described as a response to “aggressive U.S. military build up” in the Asia-Pacific region. And last week, Putin oversaw the inauguration of a gas field in Siberia that aims to boost Russia’s energy exports to China as the West has worked to cut its energy dependence on Moscow.
“Military and military-technical cooperation, which contributes to ensuring the security of our countries and maintaining stability in key regions, occupies a special place in Russian-Chinese cooperation,” Putin said Friday. “We aim to strengthen cooperation between the armed forces of Russia and China.”
Xi said that the leaders were regularly “in close, strategic contact” and noted that bilateral relations between Moscow and Beijing had expanded significantly this year.
“In the face of a difficult and far from unambiguous international situation, we are ready to build up strategic cooperation with Russia, provide each other with development opportunities, and be global partners for the benefit of the peoples of our countries and in the interests of stability throughout the world,” Xi said.
In recent years, Beijing and Moscow have found common ground over a shared frustration with the global dominance of the United States. Both Putin and Xi see Washington as a hindrance to their geopolitical and economic ambitions and have sought to forge a “no-limits” relationship that acts as a counterweight to American international primacy.
On Friday, Putin highlighted Russia and China’s expanding trade partnerships, claiming that this year Russia had become one of the leading oil exporters to China despite what he called “the unfavorable external situation, illegitimate restrictions and direct blackmail by some Western countries.” He claimed that Sino-Russian trade is set to increase by 25 percent.
Putin invited Xi to pay a state visit to Russia in spring 2023, saying that the meeting would become the “main political event” of the year.
On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that after opening remarks, the leaders would meet privately to discuss “the most acute regional problems.”
Moscow and Beijing are also mutually beneficial trading partners, with China importing Russian oil and gas, military technology and other mineral resources in exchange for high-tech Chinese goods. In 2019, Xi described Putin as his “best friend,” and since the war in Ukraine, the Chinese leader has swerved efforts to bring him in as a mediator between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
China has blamed NATO for provoking Russia’s invasion and has supported Putin’s security concerns, which Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi described last January as “legitimate.”
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