(CNSNews.com) – Russia and China stand for the building of a fair, multipolar world order based on international law, “not on some rules that someone has invented and is attempting to impose on others,” President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Thursday.
Attempts to create a unipolar world, he told President Xi Jinping, “have taken an absolutely ugly form lately,” something that the overwhelming majority of nations of the planet find unacceptable.
Putin’s remarks came during a meeting with the Chinese leader on the sidelines of a summit of the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, their second face-to-face encounter this year.
According to the Kremlin, Putin expressed appreciation for China’s “balanced position in connection with the Ukraine crisis,” while acknowledging that China has some “questions and concerns” and saying he would again explain Russia’s position during their meeting
He also backed Beijing’s position on Taiwan, saying that Russia “condemn[s] provocations staged by the United States and its satellites in the Strait of Taiwan” – an apparent reference to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island over the summer, among other things.
According to China’s foreign ministry, Xi thanked Putin for “Russia’s adherence to the one-China principle, stressing that Taiwan is part of China.”
The foreign ministry readout did not mention Ukraine directly, but said Xi had “emphasized that China will work with Russia to extend strong mutual support on issues concerning each other’s core interests.”
(In Chinese official discourse, the term “core interests” is used to describe non-negotiable issues relating to sovereignty, territorial integrity and security, such as China’s positions on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, and its territorial claims in the South China Sea.)
Putin’s comments about “rules” were a clear riposte to the U.S. and its allies, which consistently stress the importance – generally in relation to China and Russia – of nations upholding the “rules-based international order” that has governed inter-state relations since World War II.
“Together, we support building a just, democratic and multipolar world order based on international law and the central role of the United Nations,” Putin said, “not on some rules that someone has invented and is attempting to impose on others without even explaining what it is all about.”
Moscow and Beijing have pushed back on the issue, accusing the U.S. of itself breaking the “rules” – by imposing sanctions on other nations, withdrawing from treaties, and interfering in their “internal” affairs.
In their wide ranging “no limits” friendship declaration released at their last meeting, in Beijing last February, Putin and Xi stated their opposition to “attempts to substitute universally recognized formats and mechanisms that are consistent with international law for rules elaborated in private by certain nations or blocs of nations.”
‘United to resist the political virus’
Commenting on the Putin-Xi meeting, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Russia and China “share a vision for the world that is starkly at odds with the vision that’s at the center of the international system – the vision that has been at the center of the international system for the past eight decades.”
“It is the vision that is at the heart of the U.N. system and the U.N. Charter, for that matter.”
Price told a briefing the relationship had strengthened over several years and the two are moving “even more closely together.”
“We have made very clear our concern about this deepening relationship and the concern that every country around the world should have about this relationship.”
Price did note with interest Putin’s acknowledgment that China had some “concerns” about Ukraine. He said up until now China has resorted to verbal “gymnastics” in a bid to avoid publicly criticizing what Russia is doing in Ukraine – despite Beijing’s “constant refrain” over the course of decades about the inviolability of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In an editorial the Chinese Communist Party paper Global Times complained that the U.S. “has openly threatened and discredited the normal and legitimate cooperation between China and Russia.”
It rejected the notion that China and Russia were forming an “anti-U.S.” alliance, but said that the two countries “have united to resist the political virus of the U.S. and the West while opposing hegemonism.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after Thursday’s meeting in Samarkand that the talks had been “excellent, as usual.”
“We [Russia and China] have complete agreement in our assessments of the international situation,” the Russian foreign ministry quoted him as saying. “Here we have no differences. We will continue to coordinate our actions, including at the upcoming U.N. General Assembly.”