Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin recently held a video summit on Wednesday where the Moscow leader pledged his commitment to visit the winter Beijing Olympics amid the widespread diplomatic boycott of the event.
On the other hand, Putin is facing threats of being given sanctions by Western nations amid Moscow's continued aggression on Ukraine, building up soldiers on the border with the region. Xi previously proposed the idea of coordination between their two nations to "more effectively safeguard the security interests of both parties.
China and Russia's Solidarity
Wednesday's video conference marks the 37th time since 2013 that Putin had met with Xi officially. During the meeting, both leaders showed solidarity for each other who were both battling pressure from the West. It was also used as a display of the kind of mutually beneficial and increasingly tight partnership between China and Russia, Yahoo Finance reported.
However, analysts said that despite the show of solidarity of the two leaders, they would most likely not move to provide military support to each other should the need arise. An analyst for China and northeast Asia at consulting firm Eurasia Group, Neil Thomas, said that China and Russia forged a relationship because of their views it could be beneficial to their national interests.
Thomas said that the show of solidarity was not because of an ideological affinity between Putin and Xi. In an email, the analyst said that the two nations would most likely prefer to "divide Washington's political attention between strategic hotspots in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
Despite the show of cooperation between China and Russia, it remains unclear what Beijing's stance is regarding the Ukraine controversy. But China has experienced being placed in similar pressure over its alleged human rights abuse of Uyghur minorities in its region and its aggressive territorial claims of Taiwan, CNBC reported.
Independent Trade Network
The situation comes as the two nations have pledged to coordinate efforts and set up an independent trade network to mitigate reliance on the U.S.-led international financial system. The issue is one of the topics that the two leaders discussed in their meeting. The video conference between Putin and Xi saw "special attention paid to the necessity of accelerating efforts on the formation of independent financial infrastructure for servicing trading operations between Russia and China."
Russian presidential aide Yury Uhsakov added that "third countries" will not be able to influence the network that Beijing and Moscow are planning to set up. Putin and Xi welcomed the increased number of deals settled in yuan and roubles. They also appreciated the efforts that aimed to improve access to stock markets for investors from either country.
Xi said that trade between the two nations had already topped $100 billion for the first time in just the first three quarters of the year. The two nations aim to reduce their reliance on the U.S.-led financial system because of the potential sanctions that Washington could impose on them. These would most likely limit their access to international payments mechanisms such as SWIFT, the South China Morning Post reported.
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