President Vladimir V. Putin attended a trade fair in a northeastern Chinese city on Friday and toured a state-run university known for its cutting-edge defense research, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the West. He highlighted how economic and military ties between the two countries are growing. pressure.
Mr. Putin’s visit to Harbin, a Chinese city with Russian history, comes as Mr. Putin has powerful friends despite being isolated from the West due to the war against Ukraine, a campaign Mr. Putin is escalating. This is part of a trip aimed at proving that The visit followed a day of talks between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping, which marked not only strategic alignment between the two powerful authoritarian leaders vis-à-vis the West. This appears to have been an attempt to convey a personal connection.
State media reported that Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi took off their neckties after Thursday’s official meeting and strolled under a willow tree, accompanied only by an interpreter, at Beijing’s vast Zhongnanhai compound, the leadership’s walled fortress. The film showed people drinking tea in a traditional pavilion. In the evening, Mr. Xi began hugging Mr. Putin as he saw him off. This is a rare display of affection for China’s leader.
Richard McGregor, senior fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, said: “President Xi’s very deliberate on-camera embrace of Putin reflects the close political relationship between the two countries and their leaders. It wasn’t just to emphasize that.” “There was also something like scorn directed at Washington, which is pressuring Beijing to withdraw support from Moscow. It’s clear that’s not going to happen in any real way.”
The show of friendship was the final touch to talks that culminated in a joint statement in which Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi accused the United States of trying to repress their countries. The statement pledged that Russia and China would work more closely together in key areas such as energy, space and military.
Strengthening security ties between the two nuclear powers is the focus of Putin’s visit to Harbin.
Although China and Russia are not formal allies who have pledged military support and mutual defense, their militaries have worked more closely together in recent years. The air forces and navies of the two countries conducted joint military exercises, including in Alaska and near Taiwan, a de facto independent island claimed by the Chinese government. On Thursday, both leaders released language supporting their respective claims against Taiwan and Ukraine.
And while China has vowed not to provide lethal weapons to Russia, it is the largest supplier of semiconductors, machine tools and other components used in both civilian and military applications.
While that is helpful, Putin still wants access to more sophisticated tools. Harbin Institute of Technology is best known for its research in rockets, missiles and space technology, but with the Ukraine war reinvigorating the need for a more robust military-industrial complex, Russia is drawing significant attention from its expertise. you will benefit from it. The institute also trained North Korean scientists involved in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, according to the Wall Street Journal and South Korean media.
Putin’s school visits are full of symbolism. The 103-year-old university recently opened a joint campus with St. Petersburg State University, Putin’s alma mater. And, in slight disdain to Washington, the school is on the United States’ so-called Entity List, which prohibits it from accessing American technology and participating in educational exchanges because of its ties to the People’s Liberation Army.
Markus Garlauskas, a security expert at the Atlantic Council, said: “We’re not so much concerned with what specific technology China is sharing with Russia from places like Harbin, but rather with the larger patterns and signals that this trip shows.” We should be more concerned about this.”
“China did not need President Putin to come to Harbin to transfer technology from Harbin to Russia,” he added. “The fact that this visit took place so publicly is a visible and symbolic sign that the Chinese government is prepared to provide technology that can be used directly by the military in support of Russia’s war against Ukraine. It is.”
Song Zhongping, a former military officer and Beijing commentator, defended Putin’s visit to the institute, noting that the school cooperates with Russia in education.
“University-level communication between China and Russia is consistent with the academic exchanges and national interests of the two countries,” Song said.
Gallauskas said his visit to Harbin Institute of Technology included a visit last year when Putin welcomed North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to Russia’s spaceport, before North Korea began supplying ballistic missiles and other munitions to Russia. He said there was an echo. Ukraine.
“What China shares with Russia, Russia could easily pivot and share with North Korea,” Gallaskas said.
Until recently, it was China that benefited greatly from access to Russian military technology. Starting in the 1990s and peaking in the early 2000s, Beijing became a major buyer of Russian arms. Sales began to slow as the Russian government became concerned about China’s reverse engineering of Russian weapons, said Elizabeth Wishnick, a senior research scientist at the Virginia Center for Naval Analysis.
It was about a decade ago that cooperation between the two countries was restored and China began acquiring more Russian jet engine technology and surface-to-air missile systems. Still, in a sign that there are limits to cooperation with China, Russia is refraining from sharing its silent submarine technology, which makes ships particularly difficult to detect, Wishnik said. .
Putin is also using his visit to Harbin, where he attended a trade fair, to facilitate the flow of goods between the two countries.
China is giving Russia an economic lifeline by buying large amounts of Russian oil to avoid the effects of economic isolation from the West. Not only that, but many foreign consumer brands are also leaving Russia, with Chinese companies stepping in to fill the void in cars, smartphones, televisions, and more. This will bring two-way trade between China and Russia to a record $240 billion in 2023, up from $190 billion in 2022, according to Chinese customs data.
Analysts say trade growth remains a key focus for both countries, with Western countries now pressuring Chinese banks to scale back business with Russian companies. This is believed to have led to the first year-on-year decline in trade between two or more countries, he said. 1 year in March.
One solution could be to increase the amount of transactions settled in local currencies rather than dollars to avoid the risk of sanctions. President Putin said on Thursday that more than 90% of commercial transactions between Russia and China are now settled in rubles or renminbi.
“Protecting the financial assets of China’s big banks is of the utmost importance to China,” said Shi Yinghong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. He said China, not just Russia, is trying to reduce its exposure to the dollar, but the scope for doing so is “limited.”
olivia wang Contributed to the report.
