The bilateral meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will take place in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. “Our two countries have deepened mutual political trust and maintained close and effective strategic coordination,” Xi was quoted as saying by Chinese media. “Our bilateral trade volume has reached record levels and is approaching the target of $200 billion,” he further noted in the CCTV report.
Xi called on Putin for further joint efforts by Beijing and Moscow to ensure “international fairness” and “justice.” In the opening rounds of their bilateral meeting, Xi welcomed efforts for “close and effective strategic coordination” between the two countries, state media in Beijing reported.
Russia and China, like most countries, share “the desire for equal cooperation in the world,” Putin said earlier during his speech at the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum. The Kremlin chief spent much of his speech praising China and its success in the BRI. “When we start something big we expect it to be successful, but given the global scale it is difficult to expect everything to go well. Our Chinese friends did this,” the tsar said.
Putin’s plane landed at Beijing airport at around 9:30 a.m. local time (3:30 a.m. in Italy). That of the Russian leader is his first mission to a major world power since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
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Observers expect few surprises from the Russian leader’s visit to China, as the meeting with Xi is more of a symbolic gesture of Beijing’s support for Moscow. What may be interesting, however, are the signs of Russia’s close economic and diplomatic dependence on the dragon. In addition to the war against Ukraine, the dossiers on the agenda of the two leaders also include the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in which Putin, given his vaunted relations with Hamas, wants to break international isolation by proposing himself as a mediator for the leader of the Islamic world. China, like Russia, has close ties with Iran, where the clerical leadership supports both Hamas and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that could open a second front against Israel.
Orban sees Putin “maintaining cooperation”
In Beijing, Putin met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Russia’s relations with many European countries are being “maintained and expanded” despite sanctions, and “one of these countries is Hungary,” the Russian president said.
Orban, for his part, wrote this on Facebook “In Europe today everyone is wondering whether there will be a ceasefire in Ukraine. For us Hungarians, too, the most important thing is that the wave of refugees, the sanctions and the war in our neighboring country end.” According to Orban’s spokesman on X, the two leaders also discussed “Russian-Hungarian cooperation.”
in the areas of oil and gas supply and nuclear energy”.
Hungary “Try to save everything you can” in relations with Russia, the Hungarian Prime Minister said that his country “never wanted a conflict with Russia.” On the contrary, our goal has always been to establish and expand mutual contacts, and we have succeeded. However, because of the military operation and sanctions, our relations have suffered greatly.”
“We are interested in maintaining cooperation not only at the level of communication, but also at the economic level, as long as this is possible.” Orban also thanked the Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom, which is building a nuclear power plant in Hungary, and Gazprom for continuing to stick to existing contracts. “So we managed to save a lot of what we achieved. No one wants to see the results of their past achievements undone for reasons beyond their control.”
Xi and the Hungarian Prime Minister
However, Chinese President Xi expressed his appreciation for Hungarian Prime Minister Orban “since we have long adhered to a friendly policy towards China” and “actively support the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative”, the New Silk Road, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. The parties, Xi said at the bilateral meeting in Beijing on the sidelines of the third BRI forum, which will host a gala dinner tonight and the opening ceremony tomorrow, “should work to complete and operate the Budapest-Belgrade railway on time.”
China, Xi added in the state media report, is ready to increase imports of high-value agricultural products
from Hungary: The Chinese president said he is ready to work with Hungary “Continue to guide cooperation between Beijing and Central and Eastern European countries in the right direction and promote the series of steady and sustainable progress in China-Europe relations.” more general.
The Chinese leader also expressed his appreciation for Orban’s participation in all three BRI forums organized by Beijing so far, starting with the first in 2017, the second in 2019 and the last, which will have its most important day tomorrow.
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