Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi poses during his meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (not seen) in Ankara, Turkey, July 26, 2023. Stringer/Pool acquire license rights via Portal/File Photo
BEIJING, Sept 18 (Portal) – China’s top diplomat Wang Yi begins a four-day trip to Russia on Monday as both nations are expected to express deeper mutual political trust and prepare for a possible landmark visit to Beijing by President Vladimir Putin in October.
Wang, who heads both the Foreign Ministry and the ruling Communist Party’s Foreign Affairs Office, will meet Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev for annual security talks, China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The veteran diplomat’s talks with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov will cover a “wide range of topics,” including “contacts at higher and highest levels,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said last week.
Wang is expected to lay the groundwork for Putin’s visit to the Chinese capital for the third Belt and Road Forum, following President Xi Jinping’s invitation during a high-profile visit to Moscow in March.
Putin attended China’s first two Belt and Road forums in 2017 and 2019.
However, he is not known to have traveled abroad as the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for him over the illegal deportation of hundreds of children from Ukraine.
On September 1, Putin said he expected to meet with Xi soon, but did not explicitly confirm that he would travel to China again.
The arrest warrant, issued just days before Xi’s visit to Russia, requires the court’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and send him to The Hague for trial if he enters their territory.
However, China is not a party to the Rome Statute, which led to the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002.
The visit will also include a detailed exchange of views on issues such as Ukraine, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week.
Wang last visited Russia in February, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, alarming the United States, which at the time accused the two nations of sharing a vision in which “borders could be redrawn by force.”
Before his visit this week, Wang traveled to Malta for hours of “constructive” talks with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
The weekend talks were the latest in a series of high-level meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials that could lay the groundwork for a meeting between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden this year.
Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
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