The bilateral meeting between the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin took place in the House of People’s Assembly in Beijing. “Our two countries have deepened mutual political trust and maintained close and effective strategic coordination,” Chinese and Italian media quoted Xi Jinping as saying.

“Our bilateral trade volume has reached a record level and is approaching the target of 200 billion dollars,” Xi Jinping said, according to CCTV.

Xi appealed to Putin for more joint efforts between Beijing and Moscow to “protect international integrity” and “justice”. In opening remarks at the bilateral meeting, state media in Beijing reported, Xi hailed efforts for “close and effective strategic coordination” between the two countries.

Russia and China, “like most countries, share the desire for equal cooperation in the world,” Putin said earlier, speaking at the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum (BRI). The Kremlin leader devoted much of his speech to praising China and its success in the BRI. “When we start something big, we count on success, but given the global scale, it’s hard to count on everything going well. Our Chinese friends have done it,” said the Tsar.

Putin’s plane landed at the Beijing airport around 9:30 a.m. local time. The mission of the Russian leader is the first to a major world power after the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Beijing brokered a deal this year between former regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia, which returned to normal relations after a decade of bitter tensions. China’s special envoy Zhai Jun will visit the Middle East this week to push for a ceasefire and peace talks, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

Observers expect few surprises from the Russian leader’s visit to China, considering the meeting with Xi to be more of a symbolic gesture of Beijing’s support for Moscow: signals about Russia’s close economic and diplomatic dependence on China will be interesting.

In addition to the war against Ukraine, among the issues on the agenda of the two leaders is the conflict between Israel and Hamas, on the basis of which Putin seeks to break out of international isolation, offering himself as a mediator, given the relations he has boasted with the leaders of the Islamic world. China, like Russia, has close relations with Iran, where the spiritual leadership supports both Hamas and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that could open a second front against Israel.

Putin: Russia’s relations with many European countries are “maintained and even developing” despite sanctions, and “one of these countries is Hungary”

In Beijing, Putin met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Russia’s relations with many European countries are “maintained and developing” despite the sanctions, and “one of these countries is Hungary,” the Russian president said.

For his part, Orban wrote on Facebook that “today in Europe everyone is interested in whether there will be a ceasefire in Ukraine. And for us, Hungarians, the most important thing is that the wave of refugees, sanctions and the war in the neighboring country come to an end.” According to the press Orban’s secretary, the leaders of the two countries also discussed “Russian-Hungarian cooperation in the fields of oil and gas supply and nuclear energy”.

Orban: Hungary is “trying to preserve everything it can” in relations with Russia

Hungary is “trying to preserve everything it can” in relations with Russia, said the Hungarian Prime Minister, according to whom his country “never wanted a conflict with Russia. On the contrary, our goal has always been to establish and expand mutual contacts, and we succeeded in this. but because of the military operation and sanctions, our relations have suffered a lot.”

“We are interested in maintaining cooperation not only on the level of communications, but also on the economic level, as long as possible,” Orban continued, thanking the Russian state nuclear power company Rosatom, which is building a nuclear power plant in Hungary, as well as Gazprom for that they continue to fulfill existing contracts. “So we’ve managed to keep a lot of what we’ve achieved, nobody likes to see the results of their work done in the past undone for reasons that aren’t their fault.”

Chinese President Xi expressed his gratitude to Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán for “long-term adherence to a friendly policy towards China” and for “actively supporting the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative, the New Silk Road , which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.

The two sides, Xi said during a bilateral meeting in Beijing on the sidelines of the third BRI forum, which will host a gala dinner tonight and an opening ceremony tomorrow, “should work to complete and make the Budapest-Belgrade railway work, okay.” time”.

China, Xi added, is ready to increase imports of high-quality agricultural products from Hungary, according to state media. The Chinese president said he is willing to cooperate with Hungary “to continue to steer the cooperation between Beijing and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the right direction and promote stable and sustainable progress in China-Europe relations” in general.

The Chinese leader also expressed appreciation for Orbán’s participation in all three BRI forums held by Beijing so far, starting with the first in 2017, the second in 2019 and the last, the most important day of which will be held today.

The material was created with the support of Rador Radio Romania