Russia and China have agreed to deepen investment in trade services, promote agricultural exports and boost sports cooperation, as Mikhail Mishustin, Russia’s prime minister, signed a set of bilateral agreements on a visit to Beijing.
Mishustin is the highest-ranking Russian official to visit Beijing since the start of the war in Ukraine. In March, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow in a show of support for his “dear friend”.
China has claimed to be a neutral mediator in the war in Ukraine, but China and Russia have pulled closer together since the start of the invasion. Mishustin’s visit, where he met Xi and the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, came after G7 leaders called on Russia and China to be more transparent about their nuclear arsenals. On Tuesday, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said the G7 statement was designed to “exert psychological and military-political pressure on Russia and China”.
Ben Bland, the director of the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House, said the G7 statements “underlined the deepening geopolitical divide between China and Russia on one side and the US and its allies on the other”.
On Wednesday, Mishustin told Xi that Moscow and Beijing would push back against attempts by countries to use sanctions to “impose their will”.
Trade between the two countries has surged since the start of the invasion. On Tuesday, Mishustin said bilateral trade could reach $200bn this year, up from $190bn in 2022. Russian energy shipments to China are projected to rise by 40% this year, according to Interfax, a Russian news agency.
Already in the first three months of this year, trade between the two countries reached $53.8bn, an almost 40% increase on the same period in 2022.
This month China’s customs authorities added Russia’s Vladivostok to its list of transit ports, effective from 1 June. It will be the first time the Chinese have had access to Vladivostok since the territory was ceded from the Qing dynasty 163 years ago.
China and Russia’s “no limits” friendship has deepened since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Russia relying on China for economic and political support.
On Wednesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, criticised plans for Nato to open a liaison office in Japan. Xi sees Putin as an ally against a US-led global order and has suggested that the Ukraine conflict was provoked at least in part by the bloc’s expansion.
China has previously warned against the western alliance extending “its tentacles to the Asia-Pacific”.
Bland said: “We are past the point where Japan or the US is going to do things because of China’s critical commentary,” adding that the possibility of a Nato liaison office in Japan was unlikely to be welcomed by other developing countries in the region because of memories of the cold war.
Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, is scheduled to visit Russia on Friday. Last week he visited Ukraine to promote Beijing’s mediation efforts, which western countries see as being futile given China’s close relationship with Russia.
Reuters contributed to this report.
