Putin heads to China amid Ukraine tensions

Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin is heading to Beijing amid the soaring tensions over Ukraine on a trip intended to help strengthen Moscow’s ties with China and coordinate their policies in the face of Western pressure.

Putin’s talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday will mark their first in-person meeting since 2019, helping cement a strong personal relationship that has been a key factor behind a growing partnership between the two former Communist rivals. After the talks involving top officials from both sides, Putin and Xi will meet one-on-one over lunch before attending the opening of the Winter Olympics. In an article for the Chinese news agency Xinhua published Thursday, Putin emphasized that Moscow and Beijing play an “important stabilizing role” in global affairs and help make international affairs “more equitable and inclusive.” In an apparent reference to a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics by the U.S. and some of its allies, the Russian president deplored “attempts by some countries to politicize sports to the benefit of their ambitions.”

While Western officials kept away from the Beijing Games in a protest over China’s detention of more than 1 million Uyghur Muslims in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, leaders of the ex-Soviet Central Asian nations, which have close ties with both Russia and China, all followed Putin’s example to attend. In an interview with China Media Group released Thursday, Putin emphasized that “we oppose the attempts to politicize sport or use it as a tool of coercion, unfair competition and discrimination.” Putin’s meeting with Xi and attendance at the opening ceremony “announces the further promotion of the China-Russia relationship,” said Li Xin, director of the Institute of European and Asian Studies at Shanghai’s University of Political Science and Law. China and Russia have increasingly found common cause over what they believe is a U.S. disregard for their territorial and security concerns, Li said. Both their governments have also taken to mocking the U.S. over its domestic travails, from last year’s Capitol riot to its struggle to control COVID-19. “The U.S. and the Western countries, on the one hand, are exerting pressure against Russia over the issue of Ukraine, and on the other hand, are exerting pressure against China over the issue of Taiwan,” Li said, referring to the self-governing island democracy and U.S. ally that China claims as its own territory. “Such acts of extreme pressure by the West will only force China and Russia to further strengthen cooperation.” (AP)