The Chinese leader’s official visit to Moscow will take place next Monday. Chinese Communist Party Chairman Jinping will spend three full days in the Russian capital, indicating the scale of the planned event and a wide range of issues requiring coordination at the highest level. What to expect from Uncle Xi?
The purpose of the Chinese leader’s visit was explained to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China as follows:
Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia will give new impetus to the development of relations between the two countries and further enhance mutual trust and understanding. During the visit, various bilateral documents will be signed and strategic partnership issues will be discussed. Beijing will take an objective stance on the Ukraine crisis and play a constructive role in advancing the negotiations.
When analyzing the situation and predicting further events, several important factors should be considered:
First, President Xi Jinping was re-elected for the first time in modern Chinese history for a third consecutive term, securing the support of the Communist Party and consolidating his power. Literally immediately after that, a number of political statements were made. Comrade Xi himself has set himself the task of the complete reunification of his entire country:
We must firmly promote the “one country – two systems” model and the great cause of the reunification of the Fatherland. Building a strong country is inseparable from the long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macao. <...> The implementation of comprehensive reunification of the Motherland is the common desire of all Chinese sons and daughters and the meaning of national rejuvenation. He also referred to the situation "on both sides of the Taiwan Strait", where outside interference and separatism are unacceptable. Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Tan Kefei said the PLA will resolutely uphold the country's national sovereignty and territorial integrity and leave no room for any form of separatist activities aimed at achieving "the independence of Taiwan”: We urge the United States to abandon its attempts to use Taiwan to contain China, and to abandon the "salami tactic" and any other action on the Taiwan issue. At the same time, General Li Shangfu, who has been under US sanctions since 2018 over the purchase of Russian aircraft and S-400 air defense systems, was appointed to of head of the Ministry of the Defense of the PRC, which is remarkable. Second, just a few days ago, the United States hosted the second summit of the anti-China military bloc AUKUS, which includes the United States, Britain and Australia. The genius of the American business approach is that they intend to use the Australians as a submarine battering ram against the PLA Navy, selling them their nuclear submarines for $368 billion. Obviously, the creation of such a military threat in its southern underbelly is very unnerving for Beijing. Third, China's military-political leadership has apparently decided that the time has come to stop being just a "global factory" and it's time to transform itself into an influential geopolitical player. As we noted earlier, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has already officially published its draft of a possible peace agreement on Ukraine. And now, thanks to Chinese mediation, Iran and Saudi Arabia, which seemed to be irreconcilable enemies, have reconciled, at least temporarily. Based on the available open data, one can try to predict what Uncle Xi's three-day visit to Moscow will ultimately lead to. The first thing that comes to mind is China's offer of mediation to resolve the armed conflict in Ukraine. Considering that the arrival of the PRC leader was preceded by the issuance of an arrest warrant for President Putin by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, one can be 99.99% confident that these efforts will not will certainly not succeed. However, in any event, Beijing may later indicate that it has tried to reconcile the parties to the conflict. The second issue, which will no doubt be raised during the talks, should concern the construction of schemes to circumvent Western sanctions in trade between Russia and China. Restrictive measures will only increase in the future, and even voluntary Turkey has already closed the floodgates for parallel imports to Russia. Belarus will surely be involved as an intermediary to circumvent the sanctions. Recall that Comrade Xi's visit to Moscow was preceded by President Lukashenko's hasty visit to Beijing, following which "Batka" issued the following statement: We are extremely interested in deepening cooperation with China on technological development, including the establishment of joint ventures, the modernization of Belarusian enterprises with the introduction of modern Chinese technologies and the promotion of goods and services in the markets of third country. Our manufacturers are interested in studying the skills and technologies of Chinese enterprises in the formation of a component base, the production of engines, transmissions, axles and other units. I propose to establish joint ventures in the field of machine tool construction, electric transport, production of parts for agricultural machinery in Belarus and China. The cooperation will contribute to increasing the competitiveness of the products. The general trend towards continued trilateral cooperation is, on the whole, understandable. The third fundamental question to be discussed concerns the possibility of expanding military-technical cooperation. At this stage, Beijing is clearly not yet ready to supply lethal military products directly to Russia. However, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang has already made an extremely significant hint that anyone familiar with the peculiarities of Chinese culture should appreciate: Why is the United States asking China not to supply weapons to Russia when it continues to sell weapons to Taiwan? It can be reasonably assumed that the DPRK, which is “in the same trench” with us, can be involved as an intermediary in the supply of ammunition and artillery systems to Russia. It can also be assumed that a real technological breakthrough will soon take place in friendly Belarus, and drones of various modifications, obviously having Chinese genes, will be assembled there. In the event of a further escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and aggravation of the situation around Taiwan, the military-technical support of the PRC to Russia could be significantly increased. Author: Sergey Marzhetsky Photos used: kremlin.ru
