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, highlighting the country’s growing strategic ties as well as his own personal relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who sought to provide an alternative to US global influence . Mr Putin praised the growth of bilateral trade during a tour of a China-Russia Expo in the northeastern city of Harbin. He met students from the Harbin Institute of Technology, which reportedly worked closely with the People’s Liberation Army.
Harbin, the capital of China’s Heilongjiang province, was once home to many Russian expats and retains some of that history in its architecture, such as the central St. Sophia Cathedral, a former Russian Orthodox church.
Speaking to reporters, Putin thanked Xi and praised their talks as “substantive,” saying he spent “almost a whole day, from morning until late at night” with the Chinese leader and other officials in Beijing the day before. had spent.
The China-Russia partnership “is not against anyone,” Putin said in a veiled reference to the West. “It is aimed at one thing only: creating better conditions for the development of our countries and improving the well-being of the people of China and the Russian Federation.”
Rebuke to the US
But he still had a backhanded rebuke to the US and others opposed to the Moscow-Beijing relationship, saying that an “emerging multipolar world… is now taking shape before our eyes.”
“And it is important that those who seek to maintain their monopoly on decision-making in the world on all issues … do everything in their power to ensure that this process proceeds naturally,” he said.
