لنستخرج كنوزا من المعرفة و الإبداع و العلم و الأفكار
Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a virtual meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in a show of solidarity ahead of high-level talks between Washington and Moscow.
During the talks by video link, Xi and Putin will watch the launch ceremony of an expanded China-Russia nuclear energy project, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
It will mark the construction of four new reactors at two nuclear plants in China, in Liaoning and Jiangsu provinces, both of which use Russian technology, according to Chinese media reports.
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the two countries aimed to further strengthen bilateral relations and Wednesday’s exchange would be “of great significance” to the strategic partnership between the two countries “in a new era”.
Observers said the ceremony would be a show of the deepening relationship between the two countries
– often referred to as a marriage of convenience based on oil and gas and their common adversary, the United States. Technology, including plans to build a lunar space station together, has become a new focus of their cooperation.
The talks will be held a day before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Iceland for the highest-level in-person meeting between the two countries since US President
took office.
Their meeting – which comes amid heightened tensions over the presence of Russian troops along the border with Ukraine
and Russian cyberattacks on the US – will include preparation for a planned summit next month between Putin and Biden.
Yang Jin, an expert on Russian affairs with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Beijing and Moscow needed to present a united front against increasing Western pressure.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a virtual meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin
on Wednesday in a show of solidarity ahead of high-level talks between Washington and Moscow.
During the talks by video link, Xi and Putin will watch the launch ceremony of an expanded China-Russia nuclear energy project, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
It will mark the construction of four new reactors at two nuclear plants in China, in Liaoning and Jiangsu provinces, both of which use Russian technology, according to Chinese media reports.
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the two countries aimed to further strengthen bilateral relations and Wednesday’s exchange would be “of great significance” to the strategic partnership between the two countries “in a new era”.
Observers said the ceremony would be a show of the
deepening relationship between the two countries
– often referred to as a marriage of convenience based on oil and gas and their common adversary, the United States. Technology, including plans to build a lunar space station together, has become a new focus of their cooperation.
The talks will be held a day before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Iceland for the highest-level in-person meeting between the two countries since US President Joe Biden took office.
Their meeting – which comes amid heightened tensions over the presence of Russian troops along the border with with
Ukraine and Russian cyberattacks on the US – will include preparation for a planned summit next month between Putin and Biden.
Yang Jin, an expert on Russian affairs with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Beijing and Moscow needed to present a united front against increasing Western pressure.
“Cooperation on sensitive nuclear technology requires a high level of mutual trust and strong political backing, so it’s an indicator of the quality of bilateral relations,” Yang said.
China and Russia are seen to be moving closer as both countries’ relationship with the US continues to deteriorate. In March, the Chinese and Russian foreign ministers met in Guilin just days after Chinese and US diplomats sparred in front of the cameras during a contentious summit in Alaska.
The Biden administration has characterised Russia as an “opponent”, while a push that began during the Donald Trump era – for the US to revive a strategy of geopolitical balancing and attempt to drive Russia away from China – has continued, although observers say it remains unlikely to happen.
“Russia has always wanted to improve relations with the United States,” said Wang Xianju, deputy director of the Russian Research Centre at Renmin University of China-St Petersburg State University.
“There are people in the United States who are trying to drive a wedge between China and Russia, and there are also voices among the pro-Western elites in Russia who would want to see that happening.”
Russia’s president has described technology as one of the “most promising areas of cooperation” with China. Sales of Russian weapons and fighter jets to China have picked up in recent years after Western sanctions were imposed on Russia over Ukraine. And in March the two countries signed an agreement to build
an international research station on the moon
as they seek to compete with the US in space.
The two nuclear plants in Wednesday’s ceremony – Tianwan in Jiangsu and Xudapu in Liaoning – are part of a US$2.9 billion deal signed in 2018 between state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation and state-run Russian nuclear firm Rosatom State Corporation Engineering Division.
Construction of the
– all using VVER-1200 technology from Russia – for the two plants is expected to begin this month. China is rapidly expanding
as it seeks to reduce reliance on coal-fired plants to achieve ambitious targets of reaching peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and becoming
.
Wang said structural conflicts would persist between Russia and the US over their militaries, nuclear policy and transatlantic security alliance Nato’s eastward expansion.
“And the trade and cooperation between China and Russia will continue to bind those two countries together,” he said.
