US President Joe Biden has been making frantic bids in diplomatically isolating China and Russia from the world. In addition to formation of anti-China bloc QUAD, Biden also held a virtual conference titled ‘Summit for Democracy’, where a number of cruel, undemocratic, authoritarian and even terror-patron nations were invited. But despite Biden’s ambition of isolating China and Russia, recently Beijing and Moscow held a video summit proving, China and Russia still have each other and bondage between the two countries is warm and cordial.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, facing a diplomatic boycott of this winter’s Beijing Olympics from Biden and others, secured a public pledge from President Vladimir Putin of Russia that he would attend — the first national leader to do so. Although it is still unclear whether India will refrain from attending the Beijing Olympics, there are positive indications from a large number of countries, which are going to attend this global sports event.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is facing threats of “crushing Western sanctions” if Russia forces attack Ukraine. On this issue, Xi Jinping has offered more effective cooperation between Beijing and Moscow to “safeguard the security interests of both parties”.
The videoconference between Xi and Putin on December 15 — the 37th time the two men had met since 2013, according to Xi Jinping — was both a show of solidarity between two countries amid continuous pressure from the US and its Western allies.
“We firmly support each other on issues concerning each other’s core interests and safeguarding the dignity of each country”, Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin, according to reports in the Chinese news media.
Commenting on Sino-Russia relations, Anton Troianovski and Steven Lee Myers wrote in The New York Times: There is still plenty of friction between Russia and China, onetime adversaries that share a land border stretching more than 2,600 miles, over matters like Siberian logging and history. But on trade, security and geopolitics they are increasingly on the same page, forming a bloc trying to take on American influence as both countries’ confrontations with the United States deepen.
The two countries do not have a formal alliance. But Xi told Putin that “in its closeness and effectiveness, this relationship even exceeds an alliance,” according to a Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, who briefed reporters in Moscow on the meeting after it ended.
The two leaders discussed forming an “independent financial infrastructure,” Ushakov said, to reduce their reliance on Western banks and their vulnerability to punitive measures from the West. And they floated a possible three-way summit with India, evidence of their broader geopolitical ambitions; Putin traveled to New Delhi to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week.
“A new model of cooperation has been formed between our countries — one based on foundations like noninterference in domestic affairs and respect for each others’ interests,” Putin told Xi in televised remarks.
In a bit of symbolic stagecraft, both men spoke with both the Chinese and Russian flags in the frame behind them — in contrast to Putin’s videoconference last week with Biden, when Putin spoke next to only the Russian flag.
In my opinion, personal relations between President Xi Jinping and president Vladimir Putin is extremely cordial. To both the leaders in their late 60s, their country and national interest have always been a priority. Xi Jinping addresses Vladimir Putin as his “old friend”, while the Russian president called his Chinese counterpart both his “dear friend” and “esteemed friend”.
The December 15 video summit between the leaders of world’s two major powers possibly shows the sign of formation of new blocs or alliances with the participation of trusted and time-tested friends of Beijing and Moscow.
Commenting on Biden’s ‘Summit for Democracy’, Chinese President Xi Jinping said: “Certain international forces under the guise of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ are interfering in the internal affairs of China and Russia. Whether a country is democratic, and how to better realize democracy, can only be judged by its own people”.
I believe, in today’s world, every nation will have the rights to design their own format of democracy, based on national interests. No Western nation should actually behave as teacher to any of the nations in the world to teach democracy as we have been witnessing lately how the US democracy itself is on jeopardy and how the nation is entering into increased sufferings because of cruel and autocratic behavior and attitude of their so-called democratic leaders. The US no more is practicing democracy of Abraham Lincoln – for, by and of the people. Instead, democracy is becoming a grand mockery in the United States.
