Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting in Beijing, China on May 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Russian President Vladimir Putin concluded a two-day visit to China on Friday, emphasising the countries’ burgeoning strategic ties as well as his own personal relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as they sought to present an alternative to U.S. global influence. Mr. Putin praised the growth in bilateral trade while touring a China-Russia Expo in the northeastern city of Harbin. He met students at the Harbin Institute of Technology, which is said to work closely with the People’s Liberation Army.

Harbin, capital of China’s Heilongjiang province, was once home to many Russian expatriates and retains some of that history in its architecture, such as the central St. Sophia Cathedral, a former Russian Orthodox church.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Putin thanked Xi and praised their talks as “substantive,” saying he spent “almost a whole day, from morning till evening” with the Chinese leader and other officials in Beijing the previous day.

The partnership between China and Russia “is not directed against anyone,” Mr. Putin said in a veiled reference to the West. “It is aimed at one thing: creating better conditions for the development of our countries and improving the well-being of the people of China and the Russian Federation.”

Rebuke for U.S.

But he still had a back-handed rebuke for the U.S., and others who oppose the Moscow-Beijing relationship, saying an “emerging multipolar world … is now taking shape before our eyes”.

“And it is important that those who are trying to maintain their monopoly on decision-making in the world on all issues … do everything in their power to ensure that this process goes naturally,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

 Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a two-day state visit to China this week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on May 14.

Mr. Putin will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping during his visit starting on Thursday, it said.

The Kremlin in a statement confirmed the trip and said Mr. Putin was going on Mr. Xi’s invitation. It said that this will be Putin’s first foreign trip since he was sworn in as president and began his fifth term in office.

China has backed Russia politically in the conflict in Ukraine and has continued to export machine tools and other items seen as contributing to the Russian war effort, without actually exporting weaponry.

China is also a major export market for energy supplies that keep the Kremlin’s coffers full. China’s Foreign Ministry said Xi would discuss with Mr. Putin “cooperation in various fields of bilateral relations … as well as international and regional issues of common concern.”

China has sought to project itself as a neutral party in the conflict, but has declared a “no limits” relationship with Russia in opposition to the West. The sides have also held a series of joint military drills and China has consistently opposed economic sanctions against Russia in response to its now two-year-old campaign of conquest against Ukraine.

The two continent-sized authoritarian states are increasingly in dispute with democracies and NATO, seek to gain influence in Africa, the Middle East and South America.