Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit China on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine and the deepening partnership between Moscow and Beijing.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Lavrov’s talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi would include “hot topics” such as bilateral cooperation and crises in Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific.
Reuters reported last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin would travel to China in May for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in what could be the Kremlin leader’s first trip abroad during his new presidential term.
In February 2022, Putin visited Beijing, days after he dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine, triggering Europe’s worst ground war since World War II. China and Russia announced an “unrestricted” partnership.
The United States views China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat, while President Joe Biden believes that this century will be defined by an existential competition between democracies and autocracies.
Putin and Xi share a broad worldview in which the West is decadent and in decline while China challenges U.S. supremacy in areas ranging from quantum computing and synthetic biology to espionage and hard military power.
Chinese customs data shows that China-Russia trade volume reached a record high of US$240.1 billion in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 26.3%.
In 2023, China’s exports to Russia increased by 46.9%, while imports from Russia increased by 13%.
According to Chinese customs data, Sino-US trade volume fell by 11.6% to US$664.5 billion in 2023.
One year after the Ukrainian war, China issued a 12-point position paper in 2023 to resolve the Ukrainian crisis. Russia said that China’s position is reasonable.
Switzerland agreed in January to hold a peace summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who proposed a peace package calling for a full withdrawal of Russian troops from all territory 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 being approached by intermediaries.
Moscow said Zelensky’s proposal amounted to a ridiculous ultimatum and that Western countries were using the proposed Swiss meeting to try to win support for Ukraine in the global South.
Russia says any peace in Ukraine must accept the reality that it controls nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and include a broader agreement on European security.
Ukraine says it will not rest until all Russian soldiers are expelled from Ukrainian territory.
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