BEIJING — Russian President Vladimir Putin will pay a two-day state visit to China this week, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, in the latest show of unity between the two authoritarian allies against the US-led Western liberal global order. .
Putin will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping during his visit starting Thursday, the ministry said, saying the two leaders will discuss “cooperation in various fields of bilateral relations… as well as international and regional issues of common interest.” . No details were mentioned.
The Kremlin confirmed the trip in a statement and said Putin would go at Xi’s invitation. He said this will be Putin’s first foreign trip since he was sworn in as president and began his fifth term.
China has politically backed Russia in the Ukraine conflict and has continued to export machine tools, electronics and other items seen as contributing to the Russian war effort, without actually exporting weapons.
China is also a major export market for energy supplies that keep the Kremlin’s coffers full.
China has tried to project itself as a neutral party in the conflict, but has declared a “boundless” relationship with Russia in opposition to the West. The sides have also held a series of joint military exercises and China has consistently opposed economic sanctions against Russia in response to its two-year-old campaign of conquest against Ukraine.
The two continent-sized authoritarian states are increasingly in dispute with democracies and NATO as they seek to gain influence in Africa, the Middle East and South America.
Putin’s visit comes just days before the inauguration on Monday of William Lai Ching-te as the next president of Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island that China claims as its own territory and threatens to annex by force if it is necessary.
Xi returned last week from a five-day visit to Europe, which included stops in Hungary and Serbia, countries considered close to Russia. The trip, Xi’s first to the continent in five years, was seen as an attempt to increase China’s influence and drive a wedge between the EU and NATO, on the one hand, and a yet-to-be-defined bloc of authoritarian nations, on the other. the other. underpinned by Chinese economic influence that has been faltering amid a housing crisis and dramatically slower domestic economic growth.
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