SEVERAL LIFELINES FOR RUSSIA
Even when Mr Trump have been extra decided to make use of America’s important financial leverage in pursuit of peace in Ukraine, China is unlikely to bow to any strain.
Quite the opposite, the joint communique issued after Mr Li and Mr Mishustin’s assembly was unequivocal in reaffirming that “China and Russia will at all times regard one another as precedence companions and … correctly reply to exterior challenges,” together with by making “all needed efforts to cooperate with one another in opposing unilateral coercive measures”.
The joint communique additionally repeated the now customary components that “China helps Russia in safeguarding its personal safety and stability, nationwide growth and prosperity, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and opposes interference in Russia’s inner affairs by exterior forces”.
Rhetoric to 1 facet, nevertheless, there may be nothing to point a significant step-change in Chinese language assist for Russia. Beijing continues to offer Moscow with a number of lifelines.
China stays one of many main importers of Russian oil and gasoline which supplies much-needed international earnings for the Russian treasury. China can also be reportedly a significant provider of so-called dual-use items, together with semiconductors and machine instruments which can be important to sustaining Russia’s defence industrial base.
A database of joint army workouts between Russia and China has recorded over 117 of them since 2003, with one-third over the past three-and-a-half years because the begin of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
