MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit China on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine and strengthening the partnership between Moscow and Beijing.
Talks between Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who extended an invitation to the Russian minister, will cover bilateral cooperation and “hot topics”, such as the crisis in Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific, the Foreign Ministry said. Russian Foreign Affairs.
Reuters reported last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China in May for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in what could be the Kremlin chief’s first foreign trip in his new presidential term.
China and Russia declared an “unlimited” partnership in February 2022, when Putin visited Beijing just days before sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, triggering Europe’s deadliest land war since World War II.
The United States sees China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest domestic threat, while US President Joe Biden argues that this century will be defined by an existential competition between democracies and autocracies.
Putin and Xi share a broad worldview, one that sees the West as decadent and declining even as China challenges U.S. supremacy in everything from quantum computing and synthetic biology to espionage and military power.
According to Chinese customs data, Sino-Russian trade reached a record $240.1 billion in 2023, up 26.3% from the previous year. Chinese shipments to Russia increased by 46.9% in 2023, while imports from Russia increased by 13%.
China-US trade fell 11.6% to $664.5 billion in 2023, according to Chinese customs data.
One year after the start of the war in Ukraine, China released a 12-point position paper on resolving the Ukrainian crisis in 2023. Russia said China’s position was reasonable.
In January, Switzerland agreed to hold a peace summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who presented a peace formula that calls for Russia’s complete withdrawal from all territories controlled by Russian forces.
Reuters reported in February that Putin’s proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the United States after intermediary contacts.
Moscow says Zelenskiy’s proposals amount to a ridiculous ultimatum and that the proposed meeting in Switzerland was used by the West to try to gain support for Ukraine in the Global South.
Russia says any peace in Ukraine would have to accept the reality of its control over just under a fifth of Ukrainian territory and include a broader agreement on European security.
Ukraine says it will not stop until all Russian soldiers are expelled from its territory.