Русский
Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu, and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi have held talks in Beijing, with Shoigu also meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two sides discussed bilateral issues as concerns global and Asian security, in addition to global and regional conflicts and geopolitics.
Ukraine Sticking Points
These have come following Russian President Putin’s long phone conversation with US President Trump, in which numerous subjects were discussed. These included the Ukraine conflict, in which China has a vested interest due to it having long land leases on Ukrainian farmland. Some estimates suggest Ukraine rents up to 10% of its total arable farmland to China.
China had also invested significant amounts of money into Ukraine, including infrastructure, much of which has been destroyed during the conflict. Whether or not this is replaced is a security issue and is additionally impacted by any US deal that it makes with Ukraine over mineral extractions. Some of the land the United States might want to access may already have been leased to China. What happens next in Ukraine is also impacted by previous deals Kiev did with Beijing.
The Russian Arctic
Russian and American officials identified the Arctic territory as a zone of economic cooperation during talks in Riyadh. At the same time, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was discussing a ‘broad field’ of cooperation with the United States, but there had been no substantive discussion yet. On 21 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Russia the absolute leader in the Arctic, adding that many countries want to cooperate with Russia in the production of a nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet.
Beijing will want to learn more about this, as it is an observer to the Arctic Council and has declared its intention to become a ‘major polar power’. China has a variety of interests in the Arctic, including strategic interests related to potential mining as well as security. Beijing is within range of U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in Alaska. What kind of cooperation in the Arctic that Russia and the United States agree on will be of great importance to Beijing, especially since China is rumoured to have invested substantial sums in the Russian Far East, including long-term land leases.
Eurasian Security Cooperation
China is the 2025 chairman of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, (SCO), an organization that was initially established to address security issues in Afghanistan, but later became a platform for dialogue and cooperation among member countries in key areas in political, trade, economic, scientific, technical, cultural and other fields. The founding members of the organisation are China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and were later joined India, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. Afghanistan, Mongolia have the status of observer states at the SCO, while 14 countries in Asia and Africa have the status of ‘SCO dialogue partner’, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkiye, Cambodia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Bangladesh, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Laos and Syria have officially indicated their interest in joining the SCO in one format or another.
The next SCO annual meetings are scheduled to be held in China, probably in the autumn and most likely in Beijing. Shoigu’s visit will have been partially to commence preparations. The member states of the SCO have already declared that a major 2025 theme “SCO Year of Sustainable Development” and includes cooperation initiatives in poverty reduction, food security, public health, development finance, climate change and green development, industrialization, the digital economy and regional connectivity.
Further Reading
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