Counterprogramming: Xi hosts Medvedev as Zelensky visits US
Joel Gehrke
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Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping reiterated his desire to overhaul “global governance” while hosting one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top lieutenants amid the war in Ukraine.
“The talks were quite useful,” Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president under Putin, said Wednesday on social media.
China and Russia pledged themselves to an unabashed effort to mount a tandem challenge to the global power of the United States and its allies. Their most dramatic statement of purpose called for the “transformation of the global governance architecture and world order” in a joint communique unveiled at the Beijing Olympics, just a few weeks before Putin launched the military campaign to overthrow the Ukrainian government on Feb. 24.
“China’s ambiguity concerning Russia’s aggression was noticed in Brussels and in all EU capitals,” the European Commission’s vice president for trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, a Latvian politician, told the EU-China Business Association on Monday.
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Their vaunted “no limits” partnership, however, has stopped short of Chinese military aid for Ukraine, but Xi’s meeting with Medvedev offered another high-profile affirmation of the anti-Western ties.
“Over the past 10 years, China-Russia relations have withstood the test of changes in the international landscape and always developed at a sound and stable high level,” Xi said, according to Chinese state media. “It is a long-term strategic choice made by China and Russia based on their own national realities to develop a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era.”
Their encounter afforded Russia a chance to make a display of international support just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington, D.C., for a whirlwind of meetings and an address to a joint session of Congress that marked the first time he has left Ukraine since Feb. 24.
“I suspect the Russians are trying to countermessage Zelensky’s trip to Washington,” American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Zack Cooper said.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials worked to hide the planning of the trip until the eve of his arrival, which also coincided with the launch of joint naval exercises between Russia and China in the East China Sea.
“Today, we had talks with the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, leader of the Chinese People’s Republic Xi Jinping,” Medvedev posted on Telegram. “We discussed international issues, and naturally the conflict in Ukraine, too.”
Yet Xi struck an “impartial” note about the war. “China has always decided its position and policy according to the merits of the matter itself, upholding an objective and impartial position, and actively pursuing peace and promoting talks,” Xi said, per the South China Morning Post.
“[We] hope that all parties concerned will maintain rationality and restraint, engage in comprehensive dialogue and resolve their common concerns in the security field through political means.”
Xi and Medvedev implied that their convergence could play out at the level of domestic politics to maintain power for their respective party apparatus.
“The two sides should learn from each other on the ruling party’s building and contribute wisdom and strength to the deepening of China-Russia comprehensive strategic coordination,” Xi said.
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Medvedev, according to the Chinese readout, agreed that “the party of United Russia is ready to strengthen the exchanges of experience in governance with the CPC.”