Dear Igor Sergeevich,
Dear Mr. Gao Xiang,
Dear friends,
I am glad to welcome everyone to Moscow. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the leadership of the Russian Council on International Affairs (RIAC) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for their unwavering expert attention to all aspects of Russian-Chinese relations, both from the point of view of fixing current trends in the interaction of our states, and in the context of forecasting possible scenarios for the development of events. Your analytical work is in demand for the foreign policy services of the two countries, as evidenced by the traditional attention of our ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi, to the annual conference “Russia and China: cooperation in a new era”, which is being held for the 9th time.
It is especially symbolic that today’s event is taking place not only against the background of the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our countries, but also shortly after the main event of the year in our bilateral political calendar – the successful state visit of the President of the Russian Federation to the People’s Republic of China. As in the case of Xi Jinping’s arrival in Russia in March 2023, immediately after his re-election as President of the People’s Republic of China. Vladimir Putin’s trip to China was also his first foreign visit after taking office for a new term, confirming the mutual strategic choice and the firm commitment of the parties to further deepen comprehensive partnership relations. At the highest level, the project of “cross-cultural” Years was officially launched. The visit of the head of the Russian state to Harbin, whose history and present are closely connected with our country, added many bright moments. The results of the talks between the leaders of the two countries in Beijing, as well as the Joint Statement they adopted, will become a guideline for our joint work.
Colleagues estimated that this was the 19th visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China and his 43rd meeting with President Xi Jinping. Both in terms of protocol nuances and in terms of content, the state visit reflected the special trust-based nature of Russian-Chinese relations, became an important milestone not only for bilateral cooperation and assistance in solving the tasks of integrated national development, but also in the context of common efforts to form a more just and democratic multipolar world order in conditions of cardinal geopolitical transformations.
It is quite obvious that there will be no return to the old order of things. As they say, “the water came down – the stones were exposed” (水落石出). The objective trends of the modern world are sharply rejected by the countries of the “collective West”, which, in an effort to maintain their dominance, use a wide range of “dirty” tools.
The result of such dangerous actions is the fragmentation of global and regional security, the emergence of new dividing lines in Europe and Asia, the artificial division of countries into “democracies” and “autocracies”, block thinking in the spirit of the “zero-sum game”. A policy of “double deterrence” is being pursued against Moscow and Beijing. Russia is considered an immediate threat that needs to be strategically defeated. China is seen as a long-term systemic challenge, which should also be dealt with no less systematically.
The main task of our detractors is to prevent further rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing, to try to bring discord into Russian–Chinese relations, to undermine our economic and technological potential. And Westerners will always find or come up with a pretext for taking unfriendly measures – whether it’s Ukraine, Taiwan, “human rights issues” in Xinjiang, Tibet or Hong Kong. A new reason is the so–called “excess production capacity” as a Chinese export advantage. In other words, anything. In fact, this is a new reality that requires careful adjustment and adaptation of the entire complex of our strategic interaction in order to instill in it a strong immunity to destructive influence from the outside.
We highly appreciate the close coordination with China in the international arena. Our partnership is based on a broad community of interests and similarity of positions on almost all major international and regional issues. Moscow and Beijing offer the world a model of mutually respectful, equal and mutually beneficial interaction, and our common approaches attract more and more like-minded people from among the countries of the Global South.
In his Message to the Federal Assembly in February this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined the task of creating a new architecture of Eurasian security. This is extremely relevant in the context of the collapse of Euro-Atlantic institutions and, in our opinion, fits in with the Global Security Initiative put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping. An important place is occupied by the work on combining the construction of the Eurasian Economic Union with the “One Belt, One Road” initiative with an eye to forming a Large Eurasian Partnership. Expert assessments and practical suggestions on these topics would be in great demand.
We actively cooperate in leading global and regional organizations and forums, such as the UN and its Security Council, BRICS, SCO, G20, APEC. It is important to strengthen the Russian-Chinese bond in order to develop balanced solutions that take into account the fundamental interests of the parties and negotiation mechanisms based on the UN Charter and program documents, and jointly prevent non-core politicized formulations from being dragged into the final documents.
We are grateful to our Chinese partners for their comprehensive assistance to our BRICS presidency. We are working on the implementation of the main tasks of the Association, including the formation of the category of “partner states”. A meeting of BRICS foreign ministers will be held in Nizhny Novgorod soon, and active preparations are underway for the Unification summit in Kazan, to which we expect the Chinese President.
We are united in understanding the importance of strengthening the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as one of the leading platforms for constructive and mutually beneficial cooperation in the region. The primary task for today is the modernization of the SCO. It is important, in parallel with the implementation of the Organization’s main mission – ensuring stability and security in the region – to promote its greater involvement in the development of trade, economic and infrastructural cooperation. We are ready to provide maximum support to our Chinese friends in this regard during their presidency of the SCO next year. We will continue to jointly develop multifaceted ties with the countries of Central Asia.
Moscow and Beijing are actively cooperating through ASEAN and its dialogue mechanisms. A common concern is the implementation by Western countries, led by the United States, of the “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, which has a clear anti-Chinese and anti-Russian charge. To do this, selective formats of various compositions are used, such as the “Quad” (Australia, India, USA, Japan) and the nascent “Quad” version 2.0 (Australia, USA, Japan and the Philippines), the “Asia-Pacific Quartet” (Australia, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand), as well as the Triple The AUCUS block (USA, Great Britain, Australia), which aims to create a military-political structure on the NATO model with a nuclear component. The military-diplomatic formats of the “triples” of the USA-Japan-ROK and the USA-Japan-Philippines are being strengthened.
The actions of the United States and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region seriously undermine the Asean-centric security system in the region. In this regard, it is important to strengthen coordination with ASEAN members: we are thinking about launching the Russia–China + ASEAN Chair country mechanism. This year, Laos, which is friendly to us, is presiding there.
Washington continues to escalate the situation around Taiwan, thereby increasing pressure on Beijing. The West’s political and diplomatic support for Taipei is complemented by increased military-technical cooperation with the local administration, the supply of weapons there and the deployment of American military specialists. We see certain parallels between the processes taking place in Taiwan and Washington’s actions to turn Ukraine into a real threat to our country’s national security.
Russia’s position on the Taiwan issue is well known and unchanged. We firmly adhere to the “one China” policy and are always ready to support our Chinese friends in their actions to protect the state sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of the country. We are grateful to Beijing for its balanced position on the situation in Ukraine in the context of Russia’s implementation of a special military operation. We welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping’s proposals to convene an international peace conference, on the understanding that Moscow and Kiev will participate equally in such a conference and all available peace initiatives will be discussed. We have never refused to negotiate, and we are open to them now, but we will do so not under the dictates of Kiev and its Western curators, but taking into account our fundamental security concerns and current realities.
Dear friends,
Next year we plan to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II on a large scale. The Soviet Union and China, being allies, waged a bloody struggle against a common enemy, bore the brunt of resistance to the aggressors on their shoulders, and gained Victory at the cost of incredible losses. In light of today’s total and highly cynical lies in the West about the tragic events of those years, it is especially important that Russia and China continue to carefully preserve and bring the historical truth to the international community. I think that this topic will give a lot of scope for scientific analysis and suggestions.
In conclusion, I would like to wish all participants of the 9th RIAC-CAON Conference fruitful creative work in the interests of further strengthening Russian-Chinese relations and increasing the effectiveness of strategic cooperation in solving the tasks we face.
Thank you for your attention and I urge our Chinese friends to spend time usefully, to have time to appreciate the beauty and hospitality of summer Moscow!
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