\n
Both leaders have also scheduled stops in Kazakhstan, where Xi first launched his trademark \u201cbelt and road\u201d foreign investment initiative in 2013. Underscoring the importance of the region, Xi\u2019s visit will be his first international trip since the pandemic began and comes just a month before a crucial Communist party meeting expected to cement his precedent-breaking third term as leader.<\/p>\n
Central Asia was \u201cat the heart of Xi\u2019s strategies\u201d, said Therese Fallon, director of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies. \u201cIf we think about China\u2019s grand strategy \u2026 it\u2019s pretty clear they\u2019ve been pushing westward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Xi and Putin last met on the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympics, where they announced their partnership, just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian officials have said the two leaders have a \u201cfull-fledged and detailed agenda\u201d for the talks, and some analysts said they expect Putin to seek more help from China after Russia experienced one of its worst setbacks in the war.<\/p>\n
Beijing has struggled to balance its support for Moscow with a wish to avoid the indirect impact on its economy of sanctions levelled at Russia by the west. It has refused to condemn the invasion, instead blaming the west for inflaming tensions. It has stopped short of supplying weapons support but has reportedly provided drone parts, and last week participated in joint military exercises in the Sea of Japan.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Russia claimed that Beijing\u2019s third-highest ranking figure had offered an unprecedented endorsement of its actions in Ukraine. According to Moscow, Li Zhanshu told Russian lawmakers that China \u201cunderstands and supports Russia\u201d, particularly \u201con the situation in Ukraine\u201d. The Chinese readout simply said Beijing would \u201ccontinue to work with Russia to firmly support each other\u201d on core interests.<\/p>\n
The strength of the global response to the invasion and Russia\u2019s recent losses have raised difficult questions for Xi about his foreign policy acumen in aligning with Putin, but he will probably remain supportive, said Prof Elizabeth Wishnick, a senior research scientist and the Center for Naval Analyses, on leave from Montclair State University.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Russia under pressure on the battlefield, Xi might feel compelled to express some greater rhetorical support for Russia, or at least to provide some additional criticism of Nato and the US,\u201d said Wishnick.<\/p>\n
Analysts have suggested that as Russia\u2019s strength wanes, Beijing can gain ground on key issues of trade routes and the defence of its Xinjiang regime.<\/p>\n
Niva Yau, a senior researcher at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, said China had a long-term goal to shift global trade from being sea-based to land-based, especially for energy trade routes \u201cwhich can cushion sanctions on China if it ever comes to a military takeover of Taiwan\u201d. She said trade and transport agreements, or rebranded \u201cbelt and road\u201d investments could be announced at the summit.<\/p>\n
Russia had similar goals to China, Yau said, but with diminishing power Putin would probably focus on ensuring Russia was not excluded from its regional interests by China\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine has interrupted Chinese overland trade routes, complicated Chinese investment in central Asia and damaged Russia\u2019s capacity to be the dominant security presence in the region, Wishnick said. It left open the question of whether China was prepared to take on a larger security role, and whether Russia and the region would accept it.<\/p>\n
Prior to meeting each other, Xi and Putin were reportedly planning to each sit with Kazakhstan\u2019s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, a key figure in the region, particularly for China\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we expect from this trip is that Xi Jinping is really trying to see what Tokayev is like as a president, and in terms of China\u2019s core principles,\u201d said Yau.<\/p>\n
Tokayev, a former diplomat who speaks Chinese and Russian, came to power in 2019 after almost three-decades of rule by his predecessor. Analysts said that although Kazakhstan traditionally leaned towards Russia \u2013 in January it called on Moscow for assistance to quell mass protests \u2013 it was also interested in China and its \u201cdeep pockets\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another key factor for China will be to ensure regional support for its push back against global condemnation of its human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which borders Kazakhstan and is a Muslim-majority country. \u201cKazakhstan is arguably the most important country to get on board,\u201d said Yau.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Major setbacks for Moscow\u2019s forces in Ukraine will further test the \u201climitless partnership\u201d between China and Russia when their leaders meet this week for the first time since the invasion, analysts have said. The meeting of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, scheduled for Thursday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, is likely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":25527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[12487,5274,6263,8338,7421,8307,8263,8041,9506,5196,5494,6621,746,10840,5910,10954,5252,9343,2959,1152,8029,5721,11743,9833,5572,5340,5865,4802,1707,11973,5485,5424,3805,71,8459,3457,5217,5713,8943,5655,5601,2711,12664,10329,5180,5521,214,6348,694,5251,5724,3954,8964,10415,594,7898,8327],"class_list":["post-25526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-agenda","tag-asia","tag-beijing","tag-cement","tag-chinese","tag-communist","tag-communist-party","tag-diplomat","tag-drone","tag-economy","tag-energy","tag-europe","tag-feel","tag-human-rights","tag-initiative","tag-international","tag-invasion","tag-investment","tag-japan","tag-kremlin","tag-land","tag-losses","tag-majority","tag-meeting","tag-military","tag-moscow","tag-muslim","tag-nato","tag-olympics","tag-one","tag-pandemic","tag-politics","tag-president","tag-putin","tag-rivalry","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-sanctions","tag-scientist","tag-security","tag-shanghai","tag-taiwan","tag-third-term","tag-trade","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-war","tag-university","tag-us","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-war","tag-weapons","tag-will","tag-winter","tag-work","tag-who","tag-xi","tag-xi-jinping"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}