OUR Xi Jinping spent the years of the pandemic “cut off” from the outside world. If about Putin negotiated at long, narrow tables, keeping his distance from foreign leaders, Xi communicated mostly via videoconference. With the exception of his anniversary visit to (Chinese but semi-autonomous) Hong Kong in the summer of 2022, Xi has been traveling overseas since January 2020. His first post-pandemic trip abroad took place in Kazakhstan in September last year. Recall that it was from Kazakhstan ten years ago, in 2013, that Xi first formally presented his vision of the Silk Road Economic Belt, which would later become more widely known internationally as the One Belt, One Road or Belt and Road initiative. “.

Thus, the Chinese president emerged from the “quarantine” of the pandemic period in the last months of 2022. Since then he has visited Kazakhstan (in September) and Saudi Arabia (Riyadh in December). But next week (March 20-22) he will be in Moscow for contacts with him Vladimir Putin.

Xi was last in Russia in June 2019. In other words, his forthcoming visit will be his first visit there after almost 13 months of war in Ukraine. From a semiotic point of view, the following may also be of interest: Xi’s first trip after his first election to the presidency was to Russia in 2013. Ten years later, his first trip abroad since the third series (and therefore unprecedented for Chinese data) was re-elected to power again in Russia.

But what will Putin and Xi discuss during their meetings next week? Opinions on this matter differ.

What will they discuss?

According to the Kremlin, the leaders of the two countries will discuss ways.”deepening Russian-Chinese cooperation“in the same time”they will also sign some important bilateral documents“. On the other hand, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Xi Jinping’s upcoming visit to Moscow will be a visit.”peace, cooperation and friendship” in the context of which Beijing will simultaneously facilitate peace talks on the Ukrainian issue.

Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin’s foreign policy adviser, said on Friday, according to RIA, that the prime minister’s meeting would discuss issues such as Ukraine and Sino-Russian “military cooperation.” Putin and Xi, in which the participation of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is also planned.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, on the other hand, said that the two leaders “are going to exchange views on major international and regional issues,” while referring in particular to the purpose of Xi’s visit. During the visit, he stressed that this “further deepening of bilateral trust”.

The American side accuses China of not being able to act as an honest mediator in the Ukrainian conflict because it has taken the side of the aggressor, in this case Russia, against the besieged Kyiv. Western sources also accused Beijing of either already sending or about to send Chinese weapons to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, following the example of the Iranians who sent drones. “China is sending assault weapons and armored vehicles to Russia,” the U.S. publication Politico reported yesterday (March 16), even claiming that Chinese shipments of rifles, drone parts and protective equipment reached Russia via Turkey and the United States. States of the Arab Emirates.

As a “peacemaker”

However, Beijing rejects the accusations of the West and launches a “counterattack” through diplomacy, claiming to be a “peacemaker” in the Ukrainian case. On February 24, the anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a Chinese-inspired 12-point peace plan for Ukraine with the characteristic title “China’s position on the political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis“(“China’s position on the political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis“). Just a few 24 hours earlier, on February 21, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs unveiled, focusing on the international community, a plan for another, its own “global security” initiative called “Global Security Initiative Concept Paper“.

After a year war in Ukrainethe Chinese leadership is coming to the fore as a “peacekeeping power”, thus trying to distinguish itself from the US, which sends weapons to Ukraine, “undermining the peace”, as Chinese ministers complain, and also to raise their status as a leader in relation to all those ( very few, though) from the countries of the so-called “Global South” who would like this war to end as soon as possible.

When he was in Europe last February, the seasoned diplomat Wang Yi, a former Chinese foreign minister and now Xi Jinping’s chief foreign policy adviser, sent an important message to the European side. “We should calmly think about what efforts should be made to stop this war,” he told them from the hall of the Munich Security Conference, while recalling the goal of European strategic autonomy … with the prospect (expecting part of Beijing) that act as a potential vehicle for Europe’s partial independence from the US and NATO.

China-Kyiv contacts

So, the Chinese leader is returning to Russia next week… which raises expectations for Ukrainian mediation. In fact, he already has, as an indicator of China’s capabilities, the recent diplomatic success of the Chinese mediation that led to the 10^her March for the restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran And Saudi Arabia.

China’s new foreign minister (and former Chinese ambassador to the US) Chin Gang had a telephone conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in this context Dmitry Kuleba March 16, and now everything shows, judging by the leaks and publications, that it is a matter of time, maybe days, for the first telephone conversation between Xi Jinping And Vladimir Zelensky.

Currently, Beijing is trying to establish itself as an alternative/competitive pole of the US on the international stage by investing not only in its trade and manufacturing/manufacturing capabilities, as it has done in the past, but also in power projection.

However, there are centers of power in the West, as well as in Asia, that are suspicious of theoretically “pure” Chinese sentiment as a cover for the emerging trends of revisionism, expansionism, economic-trade blackmail and authoritarianism.

While Xi Jinping is in Moscow next week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will pay an official visit India meet with him Narendra Modi while the eyes were focused mainly on China, from which China, however, has turned its back in recent years, and some European countries (EU and NATO), such as, for example, Lithuania, Estonia And Latvia who left the framework of cooperation 17+1.

For the Baltic countries, who have reason to fear the threat of Russian revisionism, the vision of “borderless” Sino-Russian cooperation presented by Mr. Putin and Xi from Beijing in February 2022, against the backdrop of the Winter Olympics at the time, is still evident. , cause concern.

On the other hand, the Asian “allies” of the United States (Japan, South Korea, etc.) have their own open problems with Beijing against the background of their conflicting claims in the seas of Asia (around the Spratly Islands, Scarborough Reef, Senkaku/Diagio Islands, etc.) where its thorn (self-governing but claimed by China) still dominates of course Taiwan… on the way to the expected 2024 presidential elections in the United States and Taiwan.

As for the US, now, some ten years after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s US “pivot to Asia,” they find themselves at the forefront of a race of intensifying Sino-Russian rivalry that casts a shadow over the open fronts of technology and telecommunications (microchips , 5G, tik takHuawei and others), trade, geopolitics and military weapons (AUCUS).

British Prime Minister spokesman Rishi Sunak urges Beijing, if it really wants to have a constructive influence on Ukraine, ask the Russians to withdraw their troops from Ukraine.

Similarly, Western analysts and scholars (such as Steven Roach of Yale University) have argued since last year that “Only China can stop Russia“. However, while Russia continues …