BEIJING: Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Beijing on Tuesday to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on a widely watched visit aimed at showcasing the deep mutual trust and “no-borders” partnership between China and its giant neighbor. Arrived.
Putin and his entourage flew to Beijing Capital International Airport on Tuesday morning in the Kremlin chief’s first official visit outside the former Soviet Union this year, according to Reuters video footage.
Putin has rarely traveled abroad since the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him in March charging him with illegally deporting children from Ukraine. Putin visited the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan earlier this month.
The ICC’s move obliges the court’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he steps onto their territory. Neither Kyrgyzstan nor China are members of the ICC, established to prosecute war crimes.
Xi last saw his “dear friend” in Moscow just days after the warrant was issued. At that time, Xi invited Putin to attend the third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, an international cooperation forum supported by the Chinese leader. Putin will meet Xi on Wednesday.
Beijing has rejected Western criticism of its partnership with Moscow, while the war in Ukraine shows no signs of stopping, and has insisted that their relations do not violate international norms, and that China should We also have the right to choose our country and cooperate with it.
Putin last visited China in February for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics when Russia and China announced a “no borders” partnership just days before the Russian president sent thousands of troops to Ukraine.
This will be Putin’s third appearance at the Belt and Road Forum, which runs through Wednesday. He participated in the last two Belt and Road Forums in 2017 and 2019
The forum focused on the Belt and Road Initiative, a grand plan launched by Xi a decade ago that he hopes will create a global infrastructure and energy network linking Asia to Africa and Europe via land and sea routes. will be constructed.
Putin praised this initiative and said that it is a platform for international cooperation.
“In my opinion, the main advantage of the cooperation concept proposed by China is that within the framework of cooperation, no one imposes anything on the other,” Putin told Chinese media ahead of his visit.
“This is the difference between President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative and other projects pursued by countries with a colonialist flavor,” Putin was quoted as saying.
Since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, Russia has strengthened its energy ties with China in a sign of their economic cooperation. Russia exports about 2.0 million barrels of oil per day to China, more than a third of its total crude oil exports.
Moscow also aims to build a second natural gas pipeline to China.
While the heads of Russia’s oil and gas giants Rosneft and Gazprom will be part of Putin’s visiting delegation, no new deals in energy can be expected. According to the Kremlin, the visit is not a “full bilateral” trip, but a visit on the sidelines of an international conference.