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The China-Russia alliance deepened Wednesday, with Beijing rolling out the red carpet for Russian President Vladimir Putin in a sign of deepening solidarity between the world’s most prominent autocratic powers.
Chinese President Xi Jinping made Mr. Putin — on just his second trip outside Russia since the start of the Ukraine war — the guest of honor at a major summit of officials from more than 130 nations in Beijing.
The gathering celebrates 10 years of Mr. Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to build infrastructure and expand China’s overseas influence and was a sharp contrast to President Biden’s foreign-policy mission Wednesday.
As the Chinese and Russian leaders met, Mr. Biden was in Israel, scrambling to support the Jewish state in its clash with Hamas, and to deter a potential war between Israel and Iran, the militant group’s primary backer.
That China and Russia are increasingly aligned with Iran hung in the backdrop of Wednesday’s developments. At a minimum, the summit in Beijing added to fears the two powers may back Iran should a wider war envelop the Middle East.
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Neither Mr. Xi nor Mr. Putin made any mention of Israel, Hamas or Iran in his opening speech Wednesday.
Mr. Xi focused on promoting a new world order centered around the global economic and diplomatic power of China, whose communist government has long lamented what it describes as U.S.-led “unipolar Western hegemony.”
Speaking inside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Mr. Xi alluded to efforts by Washington and its allies to reduce their reliance on Chinese manufacturing and supply chains amid heightened competition and diplomatic frictions.
“We do not engage in ideological confrontation, geopolitical games nor clique political confrontation,” he said. “We oppose unilateral sanctions, economic coercion and the decoupling and severance of chains.”
Mr. Putin entered the Great Hall shoulder-to-shoulder with Mr. Xi and spoke directly after the Chinese president.
According to the BBC, Mr. Putin praised Mr. Xi’s signature BRI as being “truly important, global, future-oriented, aimed at creating more equitable, multipolar world relations.”
“This is truly a global plan,” the Russian president said, adding that it aligns with Russia’s own plan “to form a large Eurasian space, as a space of cooperation and interaction of like-minded people, where a variety of integration processes will be linked.”
Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, which China has tacitly supported over the past two years, is widely seen as a lynchpin of the plan referred to by Mr. Putin, who met with Mr. Xi for three hours after their speeches.
Mr. Putin later said at a press conference that they discussed Ukraine and the Middle East. He also described a growing number of conflicts around the world, saying they are “common threats and they strengthen Russian-Chinese cooperation.”
The visit to Beijing was rare for Mr. Putin, who has limited his international travel while the Ukraine war rages.
He visited the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan over the summer, but skipped last month’s U.N. General Assembly in New York amid speculation he could be arrested under a war crimes warrant issued in March by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper declared in a headline Wednesday that Mr. Putin’s meeting with Mr. Xi demonstrated a “high level of strategic coordination.”
In his own remarks, Mr. Xi promised foreign companies greater access to China’s market and more than $100 billion in new BRI financing for developing nations — pledges of hefty support despite China’s own slowing domestic economy.
Under BRI, China has built power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world and deepened ties with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. But the massive loans backing the projects have burdened poorer countries with heavy debts, in some cases leading to China taking control of those assets.
The initiative has found Beijing on par with the World Bank as a major lender for global development. The Chinese government says the initiative has launched more than 3,000 projects and “galvanized” nearly $1 trillion in investment.
But it has also attracted criticism from the U.S., India and others that China is engaging in “debt trap” diplomacy: Making loans Beijing knew governments would likely default on, enabling Chinese interests to take control of the assets.
An oft-cited example is a port that the Sri Lankan government ended up leasing to a Chinese company for 99 years.
However, many economists say China did not make the bad loans intentionally but just overextended itself.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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