During a telephone exchange with his American counterpart Antony Blinken, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, expressed his support for Moscow, while the two capitals have multiplied the signs of rapprochement in recent weeks.
With our correspondent in Beijing, Stephane Lagarde
Beijing and Moscow tell each other almost everything on the Ukrainian question. In any case, this is what the Russian ambassador to China suggests, the latter having affirmed at the beginning of the week that the Russian authorities kept the Chinese side informed on a daily basis of its security talks with NATO.
Moscow and Beijing are getting closer in the face of western pressure. A strategic cooperation agreement was reached during a virtual exchange between Chinese and Russian Asian Affairs officials on Tuesday.
And it is a very real Vladimir Putin who is expected next week in the stands of the Winter Olympics. His arrival will provide an opportunity for a summit meeting for the leaders of the two countries. It will even be the first head-to-head for Xi Jinping since the start of the pandemic.
An old friend “
The Russian ambassador says that Vladimir Putin would not come to Beijing empty-handed. Russian gas has flowed heavily through pipelines serving China in recent months. From there to speak of a reconstitution of the dissolved blocks, there is a step. During their videoconference last December, Xi Jinping called his Russian counterpart “ old friend “, but he had used exactly the same terms during his virtual summit with Joe Biden.
The ” Russia’s reasonable concerns must be taken seriously and given a solution repeated Wang Yi this Thursday, while calling calm all parties and refrain from increasing tensions and escalating the crisis. »
During the riots in Kazakhstan last month, Beijing had also formally supported the sending of Russian troops to Almaty, but while trying to reinforce its links with Central Asian countries.