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China will seek to strengthen ties with Russia, while US and NATO allies are urging Beijing to instead press harder and impose sanctions on Moscow in the face of Ukraine’s invasion.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday. Both ministers condemned the “illegal” and “counterproductive” Western sanctions imposed in response to the invasion.
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“Both sides are more determined to build bilateral ties and more confident in promoting cooperation in various fields,” Wang said. “China stands ready to work with Russia to elevate Sino-Russian relations to a higher level in a new era led by the consensus reached by world leaders.”
Lavrov briefed Wang on the progress of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine and the current progress in negotiations with Kyiv, Reuters reported. Wang hailed the relationship as “withstanding the test of international turmoil.”
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China-Russia relations have come under close scrutiny in the run-up to the invasion, with some pundits noting that in the event of Western sanctions, China would likely act as a backdoor for Russia, with Trump’s undersecretary of defense on staff and preparedness Robert L. Wilkie previously said told Fox News Digital that China is “Russia’s banker.”
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China did just that with some deals that spelled out coal and wheat deals with Russia before the invasion: The two countries struck a deal that stipulated that China would buy 100 million tons of Russian coal just a day before Putin ordered his troops Ukraine.
The Russian government-owned news agency TASS reported on the deal, adding that Russia’s share of coal in the Asia-Pacific market has increased by 8% since 2010 and Russia now controls about 12% of the market – a another sign of the ever-closer relationship.
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But former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev previously told Fox News Digital that China will “never” see Putin as an “equal partner.”
“China somehow incites him to quarrel with the West because it’s in their interest,” Kozyrev argued. “If he loses Western markets – even Japan and many other countries have joined the sanctions – he will crawl to China and ask them to buy some of their mineral wealth.”