March 20 (UPI) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping is to arrive in Moscow on Monday for a three-day trip as he attempts to position himself as an impartial broker of peace on the international stage.
The Monday-to-Wednesday trip was announced late last week by China, which said Xi had accepted the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both countries have since described it as a state visit that will bolster the cooperation between the neighboring nations and deepen their mutual trust and understanding.
Ahead of his arrival in Moscow, Xi penned a lengthy statement published Monday framing his upcoming visit as “a journey of friendship, cooperation and peace.”
“I look forward to working with President Putin to jointly adopt a new vision, a new blueprint and new measures for the growth of China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination in the years to come,” Xi said.
China has attempted to position itself as having the political power to broker peace to end the year-old war in Ukraine that Moscow Feb. 24, 2022, when it invaded its Eastern European neighbor. Most recently, China secured an agreement to normalize diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
On the one-year anniversary of the start war, Beijing, which only refers to the European war as a “crisis” or “conflict,” unveiled a 12-point peace proposal that Xi on Monday praised as being “constructive in mitigating the spillovers of the crisis and facilitating its political settlement.”
“There is no simple solution to a complex issue,” he said. “We believe that as long as all parties embrace the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security and pursue equal-footed, rational and results-oriented dialogue and consultation, they will find a reasonable way to resolve the crisis as well as a broad path toward a world of lasting peace and common security.”
Both world leaders on Monday disseminated praise about the other, with Xi stating Russia was the first country he visited after becoming the leader of China and that the two have opened “a new chapter for China-Russia relations.” In turn, Putin called Xi “my good, old friend with whom we enjoy the warmest relationship” in an article printed in the official Chinese Communist Party newspaper the People’s Daily.
“We have high expectations for the upcoming talks,” Putin wrote. “We have no doubt that they will give a new powerful impetus to our bilateral cooperation in its entirety.”
Putin also attempted to cast Russia as being open to finding a political and diplomatic solution to its war, which he blamed democratic nations for enflaming.
The Russian leader has repeatedly accused NATO of deepening the conflict and being a cause of the war, and tried Monday to present the Russia-China alliance as “literally and figuratively building bridges” and the defensive military bloc as jeopardizing nuclear security and “striving for a global reach of activities and seeking to penetrate the Asia-Pacific.”
“Today, the Russia-China relations serve as the cornerstone of regional and global stability, driving the economic growth and securing the positive agenda in international affairs,” Putin wrote.
The meeting, which is to be closely watched by democratic nations, was announced as relations between the West and China continue to deteriorate and Putin’s war in Ukraine further isolates him from the international community — an isolation that has pushed him closer to Beijing.
Putin’s growing dependency on Beijing has also raised worries in Washington over the possibility that China may begin to supply it with weaponry.
Over the weekend, Putin also risked arrest by visiting the illegally annexed Ukrainian province of Crimea on Saturday and the occupied city of Mariupol on Sunday in a bid to project an image of power after the International Criminal Court on Friday issued a warrant for his detention over accusations of forcibly deporting children from Ukraine to Russia amid his war.
The trip, according to Xi, is his eighth to Russia in his 10 years at Beijing’s helm.
September was the last time the two leaders met in person during a summit in Uzbekistan, during which they vowed to continue developing their strategic partnership.