Chinese leader Xi Jinping hailed Russia and China\u2019s \u201cstable and resilient\u201d ties as he began talks with counterpart Vladimir Putin on Thursday in Moscow, a show of solidarity in the face of global uncertainties unleashed by US President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d diplomacy. <\/p>\n
Sitting across a table from Putin, Xi said the countries\u2019 \u201cpolitical mutual trust has grown deeper\u201d and \u201cpractical cooperation has strengthened.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIn this new era, China-Russia relations are more composed and confident, stable and resilient,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Xi arrived Wednesday for a four-day state visit to Russia, where he\u2019ll top a list of foreign leaders attending Putin\u2019s heavily choreographed Victory Day military parade, which is taking place in the shadow of Russia\u2019s ongoing war on Ukraine. This year\u2019s events mark 80 years since the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, which ended World War II. <\/p>\n
Putin welcomed his Chinese counterpart to the Kremlin, where they shook hands in a cavernous hall before posing for photos flanked by oversized Chinese and Russian flags. During opening remarks, each referred to the other as a \u201cfriend.\u201d <\/p>\n
Talks held over breakfast, as well as an informal, one-on-one tea on Thursday morning, are expected to cover their strategic partnership, the war in Ukraine and Russia\u2019s relations with the United States, according to the Kremlin. <\/p>\n
The two leaders have met more than 40 times over the past decade and steadily strengthened their partnership in recent years in the face of shared tensions with the West. Their diplomacy this week comes at a pivotal moment in each country\u2019s relations with the United States. <\/p>\n
China is now locked in an escalated trade war with Washington, sparked by Trump\u2019s heavy tariffs on the world\u2019s second-largest economy. Moscow, meanwhile, has found a more sympathetic America under Trump than it did during Joe Biden\u2019s presidency, but is now warily eying recently warming ties between Washington and Kyiv. <\/p>\n
Both Beijing and Moscow have appeared keen to use the gathering to showcase themselves as stable partners and reliable powers, part of a broader bid to reshape an international order they see unfairly dominated by the West. <\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently, in the face of an international countercurrent of unilateralism and the hegemonic practices of the powerful, China together with Russia will take on our special responsibilities as major world powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council,\u201d Xi said during his opening remarks, using language Beijing typically employs in veiled references to the US. <\/p>\n
Putin noted that the two countries were developing their \u201cties for the benefit of the peoples of both countries and not against anyone\u201d and said the two governments were working to implement \u201can entire array of practical agreements, including a detailed plan for economic cooperation until 2030.\u201d <\/p>\n
The meeting takes place hours after a three-day ceasefire in Ukraine \u2014 unilaterally declared by Putin last month \u2014 came into effect, coinciding with the parade. Russian state news agency Tass said the ceasefire began at midnight local time on Wednesday (5 p.m. ET Wednesday). <\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned dignitaries traveling to the event that Kyiv \u201ccannot be responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation,\u201d amid the ongoing conflict, a statement the Kremlin said amounted to a threat. <\/p>\n
Ukraine has launched multiple drone attacks on Moscow over the course of the war, including in recent days, prompting temporary closures of airports in the capital for several hours. Ukraine says its attacks are in response to Russia\u2019s continued assault on Ukrainian territory, including residential areas and energy infrastructure. <\/p>\n
More than two dozen leaders are expected to gather in the Russian capital for the Victory Day celebrations, while troops from 13 countries will march in the parade, according to the Kremlin. Leaders expected to attend include Brazil\u2019s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Egypt\u2019s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Belarussian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko. <\/p>\n
The gathering, a key chance for Putin to project himself as a global power player, takes place amid <\/strong>an increasingly contentious global backdrop, including tensions between India and Pakistan which threaten to spiral into a full-blown conflict. <\/p>\n Russia\u2019s May 9 Victory Day is one of the country\u2019s largest celebrations. It marks Nazi Germany\u2019s 1945 surrender to the Soviet Union, a day which has become increasingly important under Putin, who has falsely claimed his war in Ukraine is a \u201cdenazification.\u201d In recent years the parade has seen a diminished supply of military hardware, as Russian tanks are instead mobilized on that war\u2019s front lines. <\/p>\n Europe celebrates its VE Day, marking Germany\u2019s surrender on all fronts, on Thursday. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chinese leader Xi Jinping hailed Russia and China\u2019s \u201cstable and resilient\u201d ties as he began…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}