Xi and Putin give a show of unity in Beijing
In speeches and a three-hour meeting at the Belt and Road Forum, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping did not mention the “no limits” partnership they announced just before Russia invaded Ukraine, but they thumbed their noses at the U.S. and showed the world they have each other’s back.
The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation kicked off in Beijing yesterday on the 10th anniversary of the launch of Beijing’s $1 trillion global infrastructure initiative.
Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 delivered the opening speech at the Forum today, and had a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also delivered a speech at the opening ceremony.
Xi’s speech
In the first part of his keynote speech (English t transcript here, Chinese here) to 1,000 delegates representing over 130 countries, Xi talked up the successes of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), stating, “What has been achieved in the past 10 years demonstrates that Belt and Road cooperation is on the right side of history.”
Without naming the U.S., Xi also positioned the BRI as an alternative to the Western-led global order, saying that “ideological confrontation, geopolitical rivalry, and bloc politics are not a choice for us.” He added: “What we stand against are unilateral sanctions, economic coercion, and decoupling and supply chain disruption.”
Xi then outlined eight steps to take BRI cooperation to a new stage. These included vague plans such as the establishment of an “Air Silk Road” and “pilot zones for Silk Road ecommerce cooperation,” as well as specific commitments such as a promise to expand the China-Europe Railway Express, a network of railways from China to Western Europe via Central Asia in which goods are transported by rail as an alternative to container shipping.
He vowed to lift all restrictions on foreign investment in China’s manufacturing sector, and said that China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China would each inject 350 billion yuan ($47.85 billion) into large and “small yet smart” livelihood programs connected to the BRI.
Putin at center stage
Speaking after Xi was Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose attendance of the Belt and Road Forum is only his second trip outside the former Soviet Union since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 (his only other reported such trip was to Iran in July 2022).
Shortly before Putin started speaking, a number of European delegates, including former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, walked out of the room.
In his speech (text released by the Kremlin here in Russian), Putin called Xi his “dear friend,” and invited investment from foreign states in several North-South trade corridors under development in Russia:
- The Northern Sea Route, a 3,480-mile-long shipping route running along Russia’s Arctic Coast linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans;
- A transport corridor passing through the Ural and Siberian regions and including a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway;
- The Northern Latitudinal Railway project, a 439-mile railway running across the wetlands and tundra of Russia’s Far North (in June 2023, work on this line was reportedly halted due to the war in Ukraine); and
- A new railway in northern Siberia that was just announced earlier in October.
All these infrastructure projects, Putin stated, reflect “the profound changes taking place in the global economy, the new role played by the countries of the Asia-Pacific region and the Global South.”
The last time Putin was in Beijing was in February 2022, a few weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. During that trip, the two sides characterized their relationship as a “no-limits” partnership, but there was no mention of this phrase in today’s meeting.
UN chief Antonio Guterres also spoke at the Forum and called for measures to assist developing countries with unsustainable levels of debt.
Xi-Putin meeting
After the formal proceedings of the Belt and Road Forum, Putin and Xi held three hours of talks (Kremlin readout here in Russian, brief Xinhua report here in Chinese). Per the readout, Xi told Putin that political mutual trust between the two countries is steadily deepening and close strategic interaction is being maintained. Xi noted that since 2013, he had met with Putin 42 times. In his response to Xi, Putin acclaimed the close foreign policy coordination between Russia and China, and noted that bilateral trade reached $200 billion and is set to surpass that total this year.
Following the meeting, Putin held a press conference with Russian journalists (Kremlin readout here in Russian). Putin said that he and Xi also discussed the situation in the Middle East in some detail, and that he informed Xi about the current situation in Ukraine. One journalist asked Putin about Ukraine’s use of U.S. long-range ATACMS missiles in the ongoing conflict, to which Putin responded that while he agreed the missiles pose a threat to Russia, they are incapable of changing the situation on the front line at all.
The nuclear briefcase
Putin was filmed today in Beijing (after meeting with Xi) flanked by Russian officers carrying the so-called nuclear briefcase, which, like the American “nuclear football,” can be used to order a nuclear strike. According to Reuters, “the briefcase is with the president at all times but is rarely filmed.”
Yesterday, the Russian parliament took the first step toward revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), signed in 1996 by 187 states (178 of which have ratified it by passing corresponding laws), which bans all nuclear weapon test explosions or any nuclear explosion anywhere in the world.
Earlier today, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament passed the bill to revoke Russia’s ratification of the CTBT. All 415 deputies present in the chamber voted in favor of the draft legislation.
For more on the BRI, see Jacob Mardell’s four-part series based on extensive travels along the Belt and Road, which looks back on what has changed over the last decade since Xi launched it with a speech in Kazakhstan.
