Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had his first face-to-face meeting with a world leader in nearly two years yesterday as he hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the pair drawing closer as tensions grow with the West.
Xi has not left China since January 2020, when the country was grappling with its initial COVID-19 outbreak and locked down the central city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected.
He is now readying to meet more than 20 leaders as Beijing begins a Winter Olympics that could be a soft-power triumph and shift focus from a buildup blighted by a diplomatic boycott and fears of COVID-19.
Photo: AP
Xi and Putin met in the Chinese capital before commenting on their shared views regarding security and other issues, a Kremlin adviser said at a media briefing on Wednesday.
The two leaders were then to attend the Olympics opening ceremony yesterday evening.
Spiraling tensions with the West have bolstered ties between the world’s largest nation and its most populous, and Putin was the first foreign leader to confirm his plans to attend the ceremony.
He hailed Russia’s “model” relations with Beijing phone call with Xi in December last year, calling his Chinese counterpart a “dear friend.”
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency on Thursday carried an article from Putin in which the Russian leader painted a portrait of two neighbors with increasingly shared global goals.
“Foreign policy coordination between Russia and China is based on close and coinciding approaches to solving global and regional issues,” Putin wrote.
He also criticized US-led Western diplomatic boycotts of the Beijing Olympics that were sparked by China’s human rights record.
“Sadly, attempts by a number of countries to politicize sports for their selfish interests have recently intensified,” Putin wrote, calling such moves “fundamentally wrong.”
China has become more vocal in backing Russia in its dispute with NATO powers over Ukraine.
Last week, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) called Russia’s security concerns “legitimate,” saying they should be “taken seriously and addressed.”
Moscow is looking for support after its deployment of 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine prompted Western nations to warn of an invasion and threaten “severe consequences” in response to any Russian attack.
China enjoyed plentiful support from the Soviet Union — the precursor to the modern Russian state — after the establishment of Communist rule in 1949, but the two socialist powers later fell out over ideological differences.
Good relations resumed as the Cold War ended in the 1990s, and the countries have pursued a strategic partnership in the past decade that has seen them work closely on trade, military and geopolitical issues.
The bonds have strengthened during Xi’s administration, at a time when Russia and China are increasingly at odds with Western powers.
Other leaders scheduled to enjoy Xi’s hospitality during the Games include Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Polish President Andrzej Duda.
About 21 world leaders are expected to attend the Games.
A majority of those leaders rule over non-democratic regimes, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, with 12 labeled either “authoritarian” or a “hybrid regime.”
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
RSS