Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin yesterday hailed “unprecedented” relations with China despite sanctions pressure from the West as he met with his counterpart in Beijing.
Mishustin arrived in China on Monday, attending a business forum in Shanghai on Tuesday before traveling to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強).
It is the highest-level visit by a Russian official to China since Moscow invaded Ukraine last year.
Photo: AFP
“Today, relations between Russia and China are at an unprecedented high level,” Mishustin told Li after a welcoming ceremony outside Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. “They are characterized by mutual respect of each other’s interests, the desire to jointly respond to challenges, which is associated with increased turbulence in the international arena and the pressure of illegitimate sanctions from the collective West.”
Li hailed the “comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Russia in the new era.”
“I believe your trip to China this time will definitely leave a deep impression,” he said.
Li said that bilateral trade had already reached US$70 billion so far this year.
“This is a year-on-year increase of more than 40 percent,” he said. “The scale of investment between the two countries is also continuously upgrading. Strategic large-scale projects are steadily advancing.”
Following the talks, ministers signed a series of agreements on service trade cooperation and sports, as well as on patents and Russian millet exports to China.
Mishustin is in China with top officials, including Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who handles energy policy.
China last year became Russia’s top energy customer as Moscow’s gas exports otherwise plummeted due to a flurry of Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
Russian state media reported that Novak on Tuesday told a forum in Shanghai that Russian energy supplies to China would increase by 40 percent year-on-year this year.
Analysts say that China holds the upper hand in the relationship with Russia and that its sway is growing as Moscow’s international isolation deepens.
The leaders of both countries are “brought together more by shared grievances and insecurities than by shared goals,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at Washington’s Brookings Institution and a former White House official. “They both resent and feel threatened by Western leadership in the international system and believe their countries should be given greater deference on issues implicating their own interests.”
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
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