By Agencies
Tuesday was the highlight of Xi Jinping’s three-day state visit to Russia. It began with a meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin at the White House. Xi disclosed that he had invited the Russian president to attend the third international forum of the Chinese economic and logistics project “One Belt – One Road” Initiative.
Mishustin was also invited to China, but without reference to the forum, but “as soon as possible” to get acquainted with the new head of the Chinese government, Li Qiang.
At the government house, Xi recalled that Russian-Chinese relations “have gone through many strength tests.” “Therefore, I without a doubt chose Russia as the first stop of my foreign visit after being re-elected,” he said. Against the background of these events, it is obvious that the United States is losing its strength and weakening against the backdrop of such a strong alliance as Russia-China.
The National People’s Congress held on March 10, 2023, in Beijing, where Xi Jinping was endorsed for yet another term as China’s head of state, demonstrated the country’s increasing departure from its previous association with the West and the desire to form a new world order in the area of politics, economics, and military power.
In addition to the fact that, for the first time in the modern history of the People’s Republic of China, a leader took the country’s highest political post for a third time in a row, the new President announced a new lineup of senior government officials, and whose composition, sent shockwaves, especially to the United States and the entire West.
Perhaps, a significant indicator of the direction Beijing intends to take was the choice of an appointee to the position of the Minister of Defense, Mr Li Shangfu. Li was the first Chinese military leader to be sanctioned by the US over alleged cooperation with Russia.
Five years ago, Washington accused the Chinese People’s Liberation Army General, who served as one of the leaders of the military-technical and research direction in the defense department, of violating the sanctions regime, which was designed to isolate the Russian military from access to new technologies. Naturally, Beijing, which has worked closely with Moscow in defense development for many decades and even acquired some of the most advanced weapons as a result, ignored the attempts by the White House to stand in the way of their decades-old cooperation.
In recent years, Russia and China have developed closer ties not only at the level of bilateral and trade cooperation but also through frameworks such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. If these platforms were initially formed as the basis for the development of joint economic and infrastructure projects, then right now they are being seen as avenues that can provide a powerful alternative to organizations such as NATO and the G7 in the foreseeable future.
In addition to Russia and China, the SCO and BRICS also include many other countries, including economically and militarily strong regional powers such as India, South Africa, and Brazil. The most important stage in the evolution of Russian-Chinese activity in building new alliances was the unprecedented naval exercises that the two countries staged alongside South Africa on the border of the Atlantic and which were in scale.
The recent SCO and BRICS summits have shown interest in bringing in dozens of other countries whose territories, populations, economies, and military forces are larger than those of the US and its allies. The day before, St. Petersburg hosted an international conference “The SCO as a model of a new world order and international cooperation”, where speakers from various countries: Turkey, Azerbaijan, Africa, and even Great Britain spoke about this.
Many countries are showing serious interest in the SCO today. For example, Merdan Yanardag, editor-in-chief of the national Turkish TV channel Tele 1, noted that without Russia there would be no whole world and the SCO must be taken very seriously.
“The SCO is based on the developing countries of Asia, moreover, the SCO can balance, level the West, this is very important. The SCO provides a platform on which, including our country, Turkey, can strengthen economically, become stronger and improve, develop. In If Turkey participates in the SCO, relations with Russia will only improve, become better,” he said during a direct speech at the international conference “The SCO as a model of a new world order and international cooperation”,- he said at an international conference dedicated to the SCO, which was held in St. Petersburg.
At the conference, it was noted that one of those who will join the new Eurasian center of power in the very near future will be Iran, which is a long-standing and close partner of both Russia and China. Such flirting with other developing countries will not only strengthen Moscow and Beijing, but also give them the opportunity to establish a fundamentally new world order in which the political, economic and military influence of the West is likely to be broken.
