Four highlights of Putin’s visit to China
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, June 24th: Four Highlights of Putin’s Visit to China
Xinhua News Agency reporters Bai Jie and Wu Yue
At the invitation of the Supreme Leader of president, Russian President Vladimir Putin will pay a state visit to China on 25th. This is Putin’s fifth visit to China since he became the Russian president again in March 2012.
What are the differences between Putin’s visit to China and the past? Why did the two heads of state meet so intensively? What topics will the two sides discuss? What are the noteworthy places during the visit?
Aspect 1: The whirlwind visit highlights the maturity of bilateral relations.
Since Putin became the Russian president for the first time in 2000, he has visited China for more than a dozen times or attended activities. This less than 24-hour state visit is the shortest among Putin’s previous visits to China.
In the opinion of analysts, this whirlwind visit reflects the high maturity of Sino-Russian relations and the profound friendship between the two heads of state.
"The practice of frequent interaction has been formed between the two heads of state." Jiang Yi, a researcher at the Russian Institute of Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the China Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency that in the past, Putin’s visit to China was not very long, not more than three days at most, and even less than 48 hours in recent times.
"This efficient and fast-paced arrangement also shows that the relevant departments of the two countries have made sufficient preparatory work before the leaders’ visit and formed a lot of consensus." Jiang Yi said.
Xing Guangcheng, director of China Frontier Research Institute of China Academy of Social Sciences, noted that although the visit time was short and the schedule was tight, it was also a complete state visit, which "marked the continuous development of bilateral relations at a very high level, and this momentum is still continuing".
In the past three years, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader visited Russia five times and held more than ten meetings with President Putin. As China’s Ambassador to Russia AARON Li said a few days ago, the two sides have established a good working relationship and profound friendship, which has played an important leading role in the relations between the two countries.
Putin himself spoke highly of the positive interaction between the two heads of state. He called the Chairman of the Supreme Leader "a very good friend and a very reliable partner" and called the cooperation between them "an unquestionable driver of the development of bilateral relations".
Aspect 2: Strategic mutual trust has reached an unprecedented height
China and Russia are each other’s largest neighbors. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation and the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Sino-Russian strategic cooperative partnership. At present, the relationship between the two countries is mature and stable, and it is at its best in history.
In an exclusive interview with Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua News Agency, Putin said that the mutual trust between Russia and China has "reached an unprecedented height" and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation. At present, leaders of the two countries meet regularly, and more than 20 intergovernmental cooperation mechanisms operate efficiently.
It is reported that during Putin’s visit to China, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader will hold talks with him, exchange in-depth views on bilateral relations and international and regional issues of common concern, and plan and deploy the next development direction and key cooperation areas of China-Russia comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. The two heads of state will sign and publish a number of important political documents and witness the signing of a series of pragmatic cooperation documents by relevant departments and enterprises of both sides. Premier Li Keqiang and Chairman Zhang Dejiang will meet with Putin respectively.
Li Dong, deputy director of the Russian Institute of China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, believes that as an important visit in an important year of Sino-Russian relations, this visit will surely have a milestone significance. The two heads of state will review the achievements and experience in the past 20 years and make a "top-level design" for the future development prospects and long-term planning, thus injecting strong impetus into the sustained and healthy development of bilateral relations.
Aspect 3: Expanding pragmatic cooperation is the top priority of the department.
Analysts generally believe that an important topic of Putin’s visit to China is bilateral pragmatic cooperation, especially in the economic and trade field.
China is currently Russia’s largest trading partner and an important source of foreign investment, while Russia is one of the main sources of energy, electromechanical and high-tech products imported by China. However, due to the weak global economy and falling international commodity prices, the bilateral trade volume between China and Russia has dropped significantly recently. Statistics show that in 2015, bilateral trade between China and Russia was only US$ 68.06 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 28.6%.
In this regard, Putin stressed that the two sides should strive to diversify bilateral trade exchanges, "enhance their attention to high-tech fields in bilateral cooperation" and improve the bilateral trade structure.
Russian Ambassador to China Denisov said recently that during Putin’s visit to China, China and Russia plan to sign more than 30 documents at different levels, covering finance, tourism, nuclear energy, aerospace and other fields.
"From the overall situation, Sino-Russian economic and trade cooperation does have challenges, but it also faces new opportunities." Jiang Yi believes that the two heads of state need to discuss how to further consolidate the foundation of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries under the new situation and find new strengths for economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.
In May last year, when the Supreme Leader visited Russia, the two heads of state issued a joint statement on the docking of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasian Economic Union. Experts believe that the two sides will continue to conduct in-depth discussions on this cooperation and tap the potential of cooperation.
In addition, during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last week, Putin called for the establishment of a Greater Eurasian Partnership with the participation of the Eurasian Economic Union, India, China, CIS countries and other countries. "It is expected that Putin’s visit to China will explain this idea to China in detail and explore how to turn the interests of both sides into practical actions." Jiang Yi said.
Aspect 4: It is proper to work together to maintain world order.
Today, the world faces many major challenges, such as the turbulent situation in some regions, the intensification of terrorist activities, and global problems such as climate change. As influential powers, China and Russia are committed to building a new type of state relations with win-win cooperation as the core, and close coordination and cooperation on major international and regional issues of mutual concern can play an important and constructive role in safeguarding international fairness and justice and maintaining world and regional peace and stability.
Experts said that Sino-Russian strategic cooperation is not only reflected at the bilateral level, but also at the global level. The two countries have similar positions on global hot issues and play an important role in promoting the reform of international mechanisms and maintaining international order; On issues involving each other’s core interests and major concerns, cooperation between the two sides is conducive to maintaining the authority and integrity of international law and forming mutual support.
At present, China and Russia are actively cooperating on multilateral platforms such as the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS countries and the G20.
"The fact that Russia and China are currently cooperating on the international stage is itself a stabilizing factor in international affairs." Putin said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency.
Putin specifically mentioned the speech made by Chairman Supreme Leader at the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations last year. "This speech aims to solve all controversial issues by peaceful means, taking international law as the criterion.".
Vasily Kashin, a researcher at the Far East Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with Russian media that the two sides will hopefully jointly issue important political statements on the basic issues of the world order and the major international issues facing the two countries.
"Mutual support and coordination on international issues is the proper meaning of China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation." Li Jianmin, a researcher at the Russian Institute of Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the China Academy of Social Sciences, said that he believed that the two sides would make new and greater contributions to promoting international peace, security and stability through this visit.