HONG KONG — China-Russia relations are at a “historic high,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping said Wednesday as he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing days after he hosted U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The international landscape is undergoing profound changes, and the world faces the danger of sliding back into the law of the jungle,” Xi said during bilateral talks, describing China-Russia cooperation as a stabilizing force in the world.
Earlier, Xi greeted Putin outside the Great Hall of the People in a welcome ceremony that echoed the one for Trump during his state visit last week. A military band played the Chinese and Russian national anthems, and a 21-gun salute was fired in Tiananmen Square.
For China, Putin’s two-day trip is about reassuring a trusted ally after Trump’s visit offered a reset in Beijing’s turbulent ties with Washington.
Though neither Xi nor Putin referred to the U.S. directly in public remarks, Xi appeared to make a jab when he said the global situation was “marked by intertwined turbulence and transformation, while unilateral hegemonic tendencies are on the rise.”
Like Putin, Xi has criticized the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran as a violation of international law, and he repeated his call to end the conflict to “reduce disruptions” to global energy supplies.
Putin said that China-Russia relations had reached an “unprecedented level” and that Russia was a “reliable energy partner” amid the conflict in the Middle East.
Calling Xi his “dear friend,” Putin invited Xi to visit Russia next year. Not seeing Xi for a day “is like being apart for three autumns,” Putin said, using a Chinese idiom.
Putin in China for meeting with Xi Jinping
The two leaders later signed nearly two dozen agreements in economy, trade, education, science, technology and other areas. The Kremlin also said there was general agreement on a second gas pipeline from Russia to China, the Power of Siberia 2, though there is no timeline for implementation.
In addition, Xi and Putin signed joint statements about strengthening their countries’ “comprehensive strategic partnership” and advocating for a multipolar world. They also agreed to extend the Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship, originally signed in 2001.
They criticized Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense project as a threat to global stability and said the U.S. had been “irresponsible” by allowing the 2010 New START nuclear arms control treaty to expire this year.
Putin also touted Russia and China’s deepening trade relationship, which had already been boosted in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While Putin is no stranger to China, having visited 25 times since he became president, he arrived Tuesday feeling a rare sense of pressure at home. His war in Ukraine looks increasingly uncertain, with losses piling up on the battlefield without meaningful progress and Kyiv expanding the reach of its drones, including into the heart of Moscow.
China has strived to portray itself as a neutral in the conflict while it backs Russia diplomatically and economically. The Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry this week rejected a Financial Times report that Xi had told Trump that Putin might regret his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, saying it “does not accord with the facts and is purely fabricated.”
In the joint statement Wednesday, Russia said it welcomed China’s “desire to play a constructive role” in finding a peaceful solution to the Ukraine war.
U.S.-China agreements
Also Wednesday, the Chinese Commerce Ministry confirmed some of the details of the U.S.-China agreements announced by the White House.
They included China’s purchase of 200 planes from the U.S. company Boeing in its first major Chinese deal in almost a decade. The ministry said Washington had agreed in exchange to “provide sufficient supply guarantees” for jet engines and airplane parts that Beijing has accused it of weaponizing.
The ministry said China would restore market access for U.S. beef and resume poultry imports from U.S. states deemed free of bird flu. It also confirmed the establishment of a board of trade to facilitate tariff reductions on $30 billion in nonsensitive goods, as well as a board of investment for the two governments to discuss investment-related issues.
Neither the Commerce Ministry nor the Foreign Affairs Ministry has confirmed the White House announcement that China has agreed to buy $17 billion in U.S. agricultural products each year through 2028.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters on Tuesday that the U.S. was “not in a rush” to extend a tariff and critical minerals trade truce with China that expires in November, saying “things are stable” and “we’re seeing them again.”
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters in Tokyo on Wednesday that while the Trump-Xi summit had a “certain cordiality” and may have lowered tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, the lack of any major agreements raises the stakes for Xi’s U.S. visit in September.
“Let’s be clear: No major breakthrough was achieved, and so the visit of President Xi to Washington gains an enormous importance,” Guterres said.
Trump and Xi could meet as many as four times this year, with Xi possibly traveling to Miami in December for the Group of 20 summit and Trump possibly traveling to China in November when it hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen.
Russian officials said a meeting between Trump and Putin could also be on the table at the APEC summit.
“I think that if both leaders are in China, they will probably cross paths and hold some kind of meeting,” presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told Russian state media. “This has not yet been agreed upon, but since there is such a prospect, it is unlikely that anyone will refuse it.”
