Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, Vladimir Putin shake hands during the Belt and Road Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Russian leader Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that world conflicts “strengthen” his country’s relations with China, after talks with Xi Jinping that celebrated their nations’ deepening political and economic ties.

Mr. Putin, on his first trip to a major global power since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, met his “old friend” Mr. Xi in Beijing on the sidelines of a major forum in an event overshadowed by conflict in the Middle East.

At a press conference following the talks, Mr. Putin said that global turmoil served to bring China and Russia even closer together.

“All these outside factors are common threats and they strengthen Russian-Chinese cooperation,” he said.

The Russian leader also said he had “optimism” for the future of the relationship.

Mr. Xi, too, said that “political mutual trust between the two countries is continuously deepening”, according to Xinhua news agency, hailing their “close and effective strategic coordination”.

Mr. Xi noted that he had met with Mr. Putin 42 times in the past decade, saying they had “developed a good working relationship and a deep friendship”.

Mr. Putin was the guest of honour at the summit hosted by Mr. Xi in Beijing this week to celebrate his Belt and Road Initiative, a vast trade and infrastructure project.

International attention has been focused on the Israel-Gaza conflict, which has raged for more than 10 days, and both Russia and China condemned the Tuesday night strike on a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds.

Mr. Putin on Wednesday said the strike was a “tragedy” and showed the need to bring the conflict between Israel and Hamas to an end.

“This is a terrible event… I really hope that this will be a signal that this conflict needs to end as soon as possible,” he said.

China’s Foreign Ministry said it was “shocked by and strongly condemns” the strike, calling for an “immediate ceasefire”.

Earlier, Mr. Xi called for joint efforts by China and Russia to “safeguard international fairness” and “justice”, Xinhua reported.

China is Russia’s largest trading partner, with exchange between the nations reaching a record $190 billion last year, Beijing customs data shows.

And Mr. Xi said on Wednesday it was progressing towards a goal of $200 billion set by the two countries in bilateral meetings this year.

Beijing has drawn criticism from Western countries for its stance on the Ukraine war, on which China insists it is neutral. It has refused to criticise Moscow’s invasion.

Mr. Putin is on a mission to strengthen the already strong bond with his communist neighbour, though experts say Moscow is increasingly the junior partner in the relationship.

In his talks with Mr. Xi, he stressed the importance of “close coordination in foreign policy” in “the current difficult conditions”.

Representatives of 130 countries are in the Chinese capital for the two-day talking shop that wraps up on Wednesday.

Earlier, Mr. Xi said in a speech to the international delegates that his country rejected “economic coercion” and “bloc confrontation”.

In an apparent reference to China’s rivalry with the United States, Mr. Xi said Beijing would not engage in “ideological confrontation, geopolitical games or bloc confrontation”.

“We oppose unilateral sanctions, economic coercion, decoupling and delinking,” Mr. Xi told delegates.

“Viewing the development of others as a threat and economic interdependence as a risk will not make one’s own life any better or one’s own development any faster,” he said.

Instead, Mr. Xi said, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would seek to “inject new impetus into the global economy”.

He also pledged to inject more than $100 billion of new funding into BRI projects.

Mr. Putin then took to the stage, hailing the infrastructure initiative as a “success story”.

The United States has asked China to use its influence to help de-escalate the Israel-Hamas conflict, which erupted after the Palestinian militant group launched an attack in Israel, killing 1,400 people.

Israel then launched a devastating air campaign against Gaza, which has seen more than a million people in the blockaded territory flee their homes. About 3,000 Gazans have been killed since Israel launched its air campaign, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

China, which brokered a detente between key Hamas backer Iran and its regional foe Saudi Arabia this year, said it would send its Middle East envoy Zhai Jun to the volatile region this week.

No details have been given about where or when exactly Mr. Zhai would travel, though CCTV has said he will push for a ceasefire and peace talks.

Russia, which has traditionally maintained good relations with both Israeli and Palestinian authorities, has called for an “immediate ceasefire” in the conflict.

China’s President Xi Jinping speaks during the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 18, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

China’s Belt and Road Initiative looks to become smaller and greener after a decade of big projects that boosted trade but left big debts and raised environmental concerns.

The shift comes as leaders from across the developing world descend on Beijing this week for a government-organized forum on what is known as BRI for short.

The initiative has built power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world and deepened China’s relations with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Mideast. It is a major part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s push for China to play a larger role in global affairs.

Called “One Belt, One Road” in Chinese, the Belt and Road Initiative started as a program for Chinese companies to build transportation, energy and other infrastructure overseas funded by Chinese development bank loans.

The stated goal was to grow trade and the economy by improving China’s connections with the rest of the world in a 21st-century version of the Silk Road trading routes from China to the Middle East and onto Europe.

Mr. Xi unveiled the concept in broad terms on visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013 and it took shape in the ensuing years, driving the construction of major projects from railroads in Kenya and Laos to power plants in Pakistan and Indonesia.

A total of 152 countries have signed a BRI agreement with China, though Italy, the only western European country to do so, is expected to drop out when it comes time to renew in March of next year.

“Italy suffered a net loss,” said Alessia Amighini, an analyst at the Italian think tank ISPI, as the trade deficit with China more than doubled since Italy joined in 2019.

China became a major financer of development projects under BRI, on par with the World Bank. The Chinese government says the initiative has launched more than 3,000 projects and “galvanized” nearly $1 trillion in investment.

China filled a gap left as other lenders shifted to areas such as health and education and away from infrastructure after coming under criticism for the impact major building projects can have on the environment and local communities, said Kevin Gallagher, the director of the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.

Chinese-financed projects have faced similar criticism, from displacing populations to adding tons of climate-changing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Chinese development banks provided money for the BRI projects as loans, and some governments have been unable to pay them back.

That has led to allegations by the U.S., India and others that China was engaging in “debt trap” diplomacy: Making loans they knew governments would default on, allowing Chinese interests to take control of the assets. An oft-cited example is a Sri Lankan port that the government ended up leasing to a Chinese company for 99 years.

Many economists say that China did not make the bad loans intentionally. Now, having learned the hard way through defaults, China development banks are pulling back. Chinese development loans have already plummeted in recent years as the banks have become more cautious about lending and many recipient countries are less able to borrow, given their already high levels of debt.

Chinese loans have been a major contributor to the huge debt burdens that are weighing on economies in countries such as Zambia and Pakistan. Sri Lanka said last week that it had reached an agreement with the Export-Import Bank of China on key terms and principles for restructuring its debt as it tries to emerge from an economic crisis that toppled the government last year.

Future BRI projects are likely not only to be smaller and greener but also rely more on investment by Chinese companies than on development loans to governments.

Christoph Nedopil, director of the Asia Institute at Griffith University in Australia, believes that China will still undertake some large projects, including high-visibility ones such as railways and others, including oil and gas pipelines, that have a revenue stream to pay back the investment.

A recent example is the launch of a Chinese high-speed railway in Indonesia with much fanfare in both countries.

On the climate front, China has pledged to stop building coal power plants overseas, though it remains involved in some, and is encouraging projects related to the green transition, Mr. Nedopil said. These range from wind and solar farms to factories for electric vehicle batteries, such as a huge lithium-ion battery plant that has stirred environmental concerns in BRI-partner Hungary.