China’s Xi calls for stronger ‘strategic coordination’ with Russia

Washington: Chinese President Xi Jinping increased his country’s friction with the US and its Western allies by heralding the Lunar Year, vowing greater cooperation and coordination with America’s fierce rival in geopolitics — Russia.

Xi heralded a new year of growing coordination with Russia during a call with counterpart Vladimir Putin on Thursday that comes as the two countries continue to cement their partnership amid friction with the West, media reports from Hong Kong and Kremlin as reported by the American media said.

Xi called up Russian President Putin and said the two sides should “strengthen strategic coordination” and “safeguard the national sovereignty, security and development interests of their respective countries,” according to a readout from China’s Foreign Ministry.

The Chinese leader also reiterated that the two nations should also “resolutely oppose external interference in their internal affairs. This was an apparent reference to the two leaders’ suspicions about the intentions of the Western governments following the US-led Quad assault on China on its hegemony in South China seas and US sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which it has successfully circumvented sending ghost ships to supply oil to countries that are its traditional oil buyers — India and China.

The call, which came on the eve of China’s Lunar New Year, is the latest robust exchange between the two leaders, who reportedly have a warm personal relationship sharing a common objective to counter what they perceive as a world unfairly dominated by the US, a universal policeman.

Which explains Russia’s quest for retaking the erstwhile states of the Soviet Union that split during Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost to balance the forces in the geopolitical world, strategic affairs experts said.

That also explains Russians intensified quest for taking Ukraine despite western objections and a step towards prepping up attacks on other splintered states from the Soviet Union.

The Sino-Russian initiatives to cement their relationship further is under scrutiny by the Western world led by the US amid concerns that China could support Putin’s grinding war in Ukraine. The war has entered the second year with widespread discontent in the Russian military.

China claims impartiality in that conflict but has refused to condemn the illegal invasion and acted as an increasingly critical lifeline for the sanctions-hit Russian economy, CNN analysts said. (IANS)

Also Read: Xi Jinping signs order to promulgate revised regulations on military legislation

Also Watch: