The head of Chinese diplomacy, Wang Yi, told his counterpart Serguei Lavrov that Beijing and Moscow “should maintain close strategic cooperation, promote the multipolarization of the world and the democratization of international relations”, says a statement from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The new foreign minister praised the recent progress of “practical cooperation” between the two countries during the contact, which according to Beijing also addressed the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.
Referring to this conflict, Wang declared that his country will continue to “maintain an independent and fair position”, encouraging the two parties to start peace talks.
Beijing and Moscow have been the protagonists of ever closer bilateral relations since the last few years, when the two countries’ relations with the West registered a progressive distancing.
In a statement, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also assured that the two ministers rejected “the policy of confrontation of the Western bloc towards Russia and China”.
“The contact (…) confirmed once again the unity or general harmony of Moscow and Beijing’s approaches in terms of world affairs”, adds the text.
Envoys from 30 countries, including China, met over the weekend in the Saudi city of Jeddah to try to find a way to end the war in Ukraine, but without results.
Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said today that the meeting was aimed at promoting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace plan.
For Moscow, Kiev and the West “are trying to devalue the high value of other countries’ peace proposals and monopolize their own right to propose them,” she said in a statement.
The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Moscow intends to receive information from its partners about the meeting.
She mentioned, in particular, the BRICS, a group that Russia is part of along with South Africa, Brazil, China and India.
Among the participants were representatives of China, Brazil and India, considered close to Moscow in the context of the war in Ukraine.
