Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed to take his country\u2019s ties with Russia to a new level this year in a video conference with counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, hours after the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. <\/p>\n
The two leaders have made it an annual tradition to speak around the new year \u2013 a feature of a close personal rapport that\u2019s helped cement a partnership between their countries that\u2019s only grown as Putin wages war on Ukraine. <\/p>\n
Xi expressed his readiness to \u201cguide China-Russia relations to a new height\u201d and respond to \u201cexternal uncertainties\u201d with the \u201cstability and resilience of China-Russia ties,\u201d a readout from China\u2019s Foreign Ministry said. <\/p>\n
The two countries should deepen \u201cstrategic coordination\u201d and \u201cpractical cooperation\u201d and \u201cfirmly support each other,\u201d Xi told the Russian president, who appeared via video link on a large screen in Beijing\u2019s Great Hall of the People during the conference call. <\/p>\n
Putin hailed the countries\u2019 expanding trade \u2013 which Chinese data show hit a record high last year \u2013 and alluded to their shared ambitions to reshape a global order they see as unfairly dominated by the United States. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe stand united in advocating for a more just multipolar world order and work to ensure indivisible security both in the Eurasian space and globally,\u201d Putin told Xi, according to a Kremlin readout. Moscow and Beijing\u2019s joint efforts \u201cobjectively play a major stabilizing role in international affairs,\u201d he claimed. <\/p>\n
The call between the two autocrats comes as both closely watch Trump\u2019s return to the White House. <\/p>\n
The two leaders have each publicly expressed a hope to reset fraught relations with the US under the new administration. Trump has also signaled interest in engaging with or meeting both leaders early in his presidency, though it\u2019s still unclear how conciliatory or hardline the new administration will be toward either US rival. <\/p>\n
Xi and Trump held their own call days before the US president\u2019s inauguration, with the conversation touching on a range of topics including the war in Ukraine, Trump later said. <\/p>\n
Xi told Putin about that phone call during the two leaders\u2019 more than hour-and-a-half conversation Tuesday, according to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov. <\/p>\n
\u201cIssues of the two countries\u2019 relations with the United States were also raised,\u201d he said. \u201cIn this context, the leaders, naturally, discussed certain aspects of the development of potential contacts with the US administration,\u201d Ushakov added, according to Russian state news agency TASS. <\/p>\n
Trump has voiced personal admiration for both autocrats, but he\u2019s also expected to seek concessions from each with an eye to evening an economic playing field between the US and China and ending Putin\u2019s assault on Ukraine. <\/p>\n
Trump on Tuesday indicated he would consider placing additional sanctions on Russia if Putin failed to come to the negotiating table to end the war. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking to (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky. We\u2019re going to be talking with President Putin very soon, and we\u2019ll see what \u2013 how it all happens,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n
Trump also suggested he hopes Xi can use his sway to play a role in brokering an end to that conflict, noting that he urged the Chinese leader during their recent call to \u201cget it settled.\u201d <\/p>\n
European leaders have long hoped that Xi could play a role bringing Putin around to accepting Ukraine\u2019s peace terms, but the entrance of Trump into the White House and his stated drive to end the war adds new potential for China to play a role. <\/p>\n
That could set up a delicate balancing act for Beijing. Xi has long sought to portray China as a potential peace broker in the conflict, even as the US and its allies have accused Beijing of propping up the Russian war effort with the export of dual-use goods, which Beijing denies. Xi is also seen to be keen to build good rapport with Trump to avert potentially damaging tariffs at a time of economic weakness in China. <\/p>\n
But the Chinese leader will also likely want to be careful not to damage his partnership with Russia. Xi and Putin inked a \u201cno limits\u201d partnership weeks before Putin\u2019s invasion and Xi sees his Russian counterpart as a critical partner among broader frictions with the West. <\/p>\n
Neither the readout from the Kremlin nor China\u2019s Foreign Ministry specified whether the war in Ukraine was discussed during Tuesday\u2019s call between Putin and Xi. <\/p>\n
Instead, both readouts referred to the 80th anniversary of the allied victory shared by Beijing and Moscow in World War II. Xi and Putin had each invited the other to commemorate that victory together this year, with events in Russia in May and China in September, the Kremlin said Tuesday. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed to take his country\u2019s ties with Russia to a new level this year in a video conference with counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, hours after the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. The two leaders have made it an annual tradition to speak around the new year \u2013 a feature <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}