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24-05-2026
BEIJING: Chinese leader Xi Jinping and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin have signaled a united front against Washington during a summit in Beijing, warning against a global return to the “law of the jungle”.
In a joint statement, China and Russia took aim at US President Donald Trump’s plans for a $175bn “Golden Dome” defence system, which would create a new missile field in the Midwest.
The duo also criticized the expiry of the last US-Russia arms control treaty, which fell to the wayside in February when Trump failed to respond to Moscow’s proposal to extend it by a year.
Wednesday’s summit which came a week after Xi hosted Trump in Beijing kicked off with fanfare in the Chinese capital, complete with a red carpet and a military band playing both the Chinese and Russian national anthems.
In their opening remarks, the leaders emphasized strengthening ties and cooperation between Russia and China amid an increasingly fractured world order.
“Even against the backdrop of unfavorable external factors, our interaction and economic cooperation demonstrate strong momentum,” Russian media reported Putin telling Xi.
Xi meanwhile lauded the “unyielding relationship” between China and Russia.
“We have been able to continuously deepen our political mutual trust and strategic coordination with a resilience that remains unyielding despite trials and tribulations,” Xi said.
The Chinese leader also addressed the United States-Israeli war on Iran, telling his Russian counterpart that further conflict was “inadvisable” and a ceasefire was necessary.
“A comprehensive ceasefire is of utmost urgency, resuming hostilities is even more inadvisable and maintaining negotiations is particularly important,” Xi said.
A separate joint statement advised that “there is a danger of fragmentation of the international community and a return to the ‘law of the jungle’”.
“Attempts by a number of states to unilaterally manage global affairs, impose their interests on the entire world, and limit the sovereign development of other countries, in the spirit of the colonial era, have failed,” the statement added.
Among the chief topics of discussion was the energy sector, which Putin called the “driving force of economic cooperation” in Russian-Chinese relations.
China asserted itself as a major buyer of Russian oil and trading partner after Western countries largely cut economic ties with Moscow in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Journalist Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said that while the two leaders planned to sign some 40 agreements covering everything from the economy and tourism to education, energy security remained Putin’s priority.
“Since the war in Ukraine, any gas sales that were previously heading to Europe, that is all dried up, and Russia is in desperate need of revenue to replace that,” she said.
The talks did not lead to a new consensus on a long-discussed gas pipeline known as Power of Siberia 2, however.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media that the two sides had reached a “basic understanding” on the pipeline, including its route, but that there was no “clear timeline” for a buildout.
Xi said that cooperation in energy and resource connectivity should be the “ballast stone” between the two countries, but did not mention the pipeline.
Although they received the same red-carpet welcome ceremony, Putin’s visit has so far contrasted sharply with Trump’s trip last week. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
