Recently, Chinese President Xi welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin with great fanfare to deepen their “strategic partnership” based on national interests. He expressed his resolve to pursue a “no limits” partnership, unintimidated by US threats communicated by Joe Biden during their summit meeting in California.
These threats were later reiterated by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They warned China that there would be “significant consequences” if Chinese companies supported Russia’s war against Ukraine.
They also demanded that China refrain from deepening its bilateral defense and defense production ties with Russia. While setting aside the US warning, President Putin marked his first visit to a foreign country since he was sworn in for a six-year term, sending a clear message to the world about his priorities and the depth of his personal relationship with Xi.
Putin declared the visit to be of an unprecedentedly high level for the strategic partnership between the two countries undeterred by attempts made by the US and EU to create a wedge between them. This visit was also a signal that they are ready to face the US position, which casts China as its biggest competitor and has labeled the Russia-China bilateral relations as the defining factor in an existential contest between democracies and autocracies.
While defining the aims of his visit, the Russian President touched the raw nerves of the USA and Europe when he stated that both countries would establish closer cooperation in various fields, including industry and high technology, space and peaceful nuclear energy, artificial intelligence, renewable energy sources, quantum computing, synthetic biology, espionage, hard military power, energy, trade, and innovative sectors.
This visit was also a show of strength and resilience against US sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine and on China for flooding the US market with cost-effective industrial products, especially solar panels, new electric vehicles, lithium batteries, semiconductors, and clean energy products, alongside charges of industrial espionage.
In pre-visit media briefings, both countries expressed their desire to further boost their record $240 billion (S$323.7 billion) trade from last year, marking a 26 percent increase from the previous year. This trade spans various goods, ranging from cars and industrial machinery to smartphones, and includes billions of dollars’ worth of Russian energy exports.
Interestingly, following the Ukraine war, relations between the two countries have strengthened, as have Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions. The upsurge in trade received a significant boost when European suppliers ceased the supply of technologically advanced industrial goods critical to maintaining Russian industries at full capacity due to sanctions.
China stepped in to successfully fill the gap with high-quality and cost-effective substitutes, which alleviated many of Russia’s woes. Simultaneously, this shift also compensated for Chinese losses in the US market.
This newfound opportunity propelled Chinese exports to Russia to a new level, particularly in key critical technologies. These exports directly or indirectly helped Russia remain strong in industrial and defense sectors despite the depletion of its resources due to the protracted Russia-Ukraine war.
Qamar Bashir
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
Comments
Comments are closed.