Russia, China Announce Boundless Friendship
Russia, China confront the West with a “partnership without borders”… The two countries reveal areas of their cooperation.
President Xi Jinping hosted his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday, with the two countries declaring that their relationship was superior to any Cold War-era alliance and that they would work together on space, climate change, artificial intelligence and internet control.
China and Russia announced a “borderless” partnership, during which they support each other in confrontations over Ukraine and Taiwan, with a pledge to increase cooperation against the West, in a joint announcement on the sidelines of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s participation in the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing Friday, February 4 February 2022.
On Ukraine, Beijing has backed Russia’s demand that Kiev not be included in NATO with the Kremlin massing 100,000 troops near its neighbor, while Moscow has opposed any form of Taiwan independence as major powers battle over their spheres of influence.
The two countries said that “the friendship between the two countries has no limits, and there is no prohibition on cooperation in any field.”
The timing of the announcement had very strong implications, as it came with the opening of the Olympic Games hosted by China and boycotted by the United States diplomatically.
The agreement represents the clearest statement of Russia and China’s determination to work together against the United States to build a new international order based on their own vision of human rights and democracy.
Putin took the occasion to promote a new gas deal with China valued at about $117.5 billion and pledged to increase Russia’s exports in the Far East.
American reaction
The United States responded by saying the Chinese president should have used the meeting to press for lowering tensions in Ukraine.
The meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian Vladimir Putin in Beijing should have been an opportunity for China to encourage Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine, Daniel Krettenbrink, the US State Department’s top diplomat for East Asian affairs said on Friday.
Such an approach is what the world expects from “responsible forces,” Krettenbrink told reporters.
“If Russia invades Ukraine, and China ignores it, this indicates that China is willing to condone Russia’s attempts to coerce or tacitly support Ukraine, even as it embarrasses Beijing, harms European security and risks global peace and economic stability,” he added.
Xi and Putin “declared their determination to stand together, stand up to the United States and the West, and are ready to withstand sanctions and compete with US leadership in the world,” said Daniel Russell of the Asia Society Institute, who served as the State Department’s chief diplomat for East Asia in the Barack Obama administration.
The start of the Olympic Games in China coincides with global concerns about the safety of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, after she said that a high-ranking Chinese government official sexually assaulted her. But the International Olympic Committee said it had met her and would meet her during the Games.
The United States, Britain and Canada have diplomatically boycotted the Games; Protesting what they say is the genocide of nearly one million Uighur Muslims in China’s far western province of Xinjiang. Officials in Beijing have repeatedly rejected accusations of human rights abuse.
