China says it will “continue to strengthen strategic coordination” with Russia, regardless of how the “international landscape may change,” according to a statement released by China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.
China’s Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng expressed this view to the Russian ambassador to China Andrey Denisov during a meeting on Monday, the ministry said.
“No matter how the international landscape may change, China will continue to strengthen strategic coordination with Russia to achieve win-win cooperation, jointly safeguard our common interests and promote the building of a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind,” Le said, according to the statement.
Le cited a nearly 30% increase in trade between the two countries during the first quarter of the year, reaching around $38.2 billion, as a testament to the “tremendous resilience” of its bilateral cooperation.
Some context: In public statements and at international summits, Chinese officials have attempted to stake out a seemingly neutral position on the war in Ukraine, neither condemning Russian actions nor ruling out the possibility Beijing could act as a mediator in a push for peace.
Before the invasion, allies China and Russia proclaimed their relationship had “no limits.”
But Beijing has since been quietly distancing itself from Russia’s sanction-hit economy and has repeatedly denounced sanctions against Moscow as an ineffective way of resolving the crisis.