
President Xi Jinping talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin via video link from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday. LIU BIN/XINHUA
CHINA DAILY | Published January 22, 2025
President Xi Jinping has pledged to work with Russian President Vladimir Putin to take bilateral relations to greater heights in the new year and “cope with uncertainties in the external environment through the stability and resilience of China-Russia ties”.
In a meeting via video link with Putin at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday afternoon, Xi also stated his willingness to work together to promote the development and revitalization of the two nations and to safeguard international fairness and justice.
As part of recent high-level interactions, Xi and Putin exchanged congratulatory messages on Dec 31.
With Chinese New Year coming up in a few days, the two heads of state also exchanged good wishes on Tuesday.
Xi expressed wishes for prosperous bilateral relations in the new year, while Putin wished Xi and the Chinese people a happy new year and all the best.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of both the victory in the World Anti-Fascist War and the founding of the United Nations, and the two anniversaries were high on the agenda of Tuesday’s talks.
Xi said the two countries should take this opportunity to jointly safeguard the UN-centered international system and the outcomes of the World War II victory.
The two countries should encourage all nations to strictly observe the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, uphold the universally recognized basic norms of international relations and practice true multilateralism, he added.
Putin referred to the fact that Russia and China defended their state sovereignty and national dignity 80 years ago by resisting invaders with blood and lives.
The two countries should jointly celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory this year and safeguard the outcomes of the victory in World War II, he said.
Also this year, China holds the rotating presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Xi said that China is ready to work with Russia and other member states to take the SCO into a new phase featuring higher-quality development, greater commitment and better performance.
In addition, the two countries should work together to promote greater BRICS cooperation and write a new chapter of unity and self-improvement for the Global South, he added.
Putin said Russia is willing to strengthen cooperation with China in multilateral affairs and play an active role in world peace and development.
Last year, the two heads of state met three times and reached a number of important consensuses, and the two countries celebrated the 75th anniversary of their diplomatic relations.
Bilateral trade between January and November last year reached $222.775 billion, an increase of 2.1 percent year-on-year, according to the Chinese embassy in Russia.
As part of flourishing tourism cooperation, nearly 3 million visits by tourists were made between the two countries last year, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui said in a recent article.
Pragmatic cooperation is progressing steadily and the two sides have worked closely in multilateral platforms such as the UN, the SCO and BRICS, observers said.
Xi said that China-Russia relations — characterized by permanent good-neighborly friendship, comprehensive strategic cooperation and mutually beneficial, win-win cooperation — “have witnessed constantly renewed vitality”.
The two countries “provided more positivity for the reform and construction of the global governance system”, he added.
He called on the two sides to further deepen strategic cooperation, firmly support each other, safeguard the legitimate interests of the two countries, consolidate and expand bilateral ties, and promote the in-depth growth of practical cooperation.
Putin said Russia firmly supports that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and it firmly opposes any form of “Taiwan independence”.
Putin noted that Russia and China always trust each other, support each other and treat each other as equals, and bilateral cooperation meets the interests of the two peoples and is never affected by changes in the international situation.
He said he was pleased to see that the two countries’ cooperation in the economy, trade and energy has maintained good momentum, the number of tourists visiting each other has been increasing, and the two sides have maintained close communication and collaboration on multilateral occasions.
The two heads of state also had an in-depth exchange of views on international and regional issues of common concern, and they agreed to maintain strategic communication in the new year.
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SOURCE: www.chinadaily.com.cn
RELATED: Xi and Putin hail tightening ties in call hours after Trump inauguration
Chinese leader Xi Jinping shake hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia on October 22, 2024.
CNN | Published January 22, 2025
Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed to take his country’s ties with Russia to a new level this year in a video conference with counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, hours after the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.
The two leaders have made it an annual tradition to speak around the new year – a feature of a close personal rapport that’s helped cement a partnership between their countries that’s only grown as Putin wages war on Ukraine.
Xi expressed his readiness to “guide China-Russia relations to a new height” and respond to “external uncertainties” with the “stability and resilience of China-Russia ties,” a readout from China’s Foreign Ministry said.
The two countries should deepen “strategic coordination” and “practical cooperation” and “firmly support each other,” Xi told the Russian president, who appeared via video link on a large screen in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People during the conference call.
Putin hailed the countries’ expanding trade – which Chinese data show hit a record high last year – and alluded to their shared ambitions to reshape a global order they see as unfairly dominated by the United States.
“We stand united in advocating for a more just multipolar world order and work to ensure indivisible security both in the Eurasian space and globally,” Putin told Xi, according to a Kremlin readout. Moscow and Beijing’s joint efforts “objectively play a major stabilizing role in international affairs,” he claimed.
The call between the two autocrats comes as both closely watch Trump’s return to the White House.
The two leaders have each publicly expressed a hope to reset fraught relations with the US under the new administration. Trump has also signaled interest in engaging with or meeting both leaders early in his presidency, though it’s still unclear how conciliatory or hardline the new administration will be toward either US rival.
Xi and Trump held their own call days before the US president’s inauguration, with the conversation touching on a range of topics including the war in Ukraine, Trump later said.
Xi told Putin about that phone call during the two leaders’ more than hour-and-a-half conversation Tuesday, according to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, who added that the timing of the call was unrelated to Trump’s inauguration.
“Issues of the two countries’ relations with the United States were also raised,” he said. “In this context, the leaders, naturally, discussed certain aspects of the development of potential contacts with the US administration,” Ushakov said, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Gavriil Grigorov/pool/AFP/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping via video link from a state residence outside Moscow on January 21, 2025.
A diplomatic triangle?
Trump has voiced personal admiration for both autocrats, but he’s also expected to seek concessions from each with an eye to evening an economic playing field between the US and China and ending Putin’s assault on Ukraine.
Trump on Tuesday indicated he would consider placing additional sanctions on Russia if Putin failed to come to the negotiating table to end the war.
“We’re talking to (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky. We’re going to be talking with President Putin very soon, and we’ll see what – how it all happens,” Trump said.
Trump also suggested he hopes Xi can use his sway to play a role in brokering an end to that conflict, noting that he urged the Chinese leader during their recent call to “get it settled.”
European leaders have long hoped that Xi could play a role bringing Putin around to accepting Ukraine’s peace terms, but the entrance of Trump into the White House and his stated drive to end the war adds new potential for China to play a role.
That could set up a delicate balancing act for Beijing. Xi has long sought to portray China as a potential peace broker in the conflict, even as the US and its allies have accused Beijing of propping up the Russian war effort with the export of dual-use goods, which Beijing denies. Xi is also seen to be keen to build good rapport with Trump to avert potentially damaging tariffs at a time of economic weakness in China.
But the Chinese leader will also likely want to be careful not to damage his partnership with Russia. Xi and Putin inked a “no limits” partnership weeks before Putin’s invasion and Xi sees his Russian counterpart as a critical partner among broader frictions with the West.
Neither the readout from the Kremlin nor China’s Foreign Ministry specified whether the war in Ukraine was discussed during Tuesday’s call between Putin and Xi.
Instead, both readouts referred to the 80th anniversary of the allied victory shared by Beijing and Moscow in World War II. Xi and Putin had each invited the other to commemorate that victory together this year, with events in Russia in May and China in September, the Kremlin said Tuesday.
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SOURCE: www.cnn.com
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