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“The China-Russia relationship today is hard-earned, and the two sides need to cherish and nurture it,” Xi told Putin as they met in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. Later describing their initial session as “warm and comradely”, Putin outlined sectors where the two are strengthening ties, from nuclear and energy co-operation to food supplies and Chinese car manufacturing in Russia.
“It was the unprecedentedly high level of the strategic partnership between our countries that determined my choice of China as the first state that I would visit after taking office as president,” Putin said. The United States casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat while US President Joe Biden says this century will be defined by an existential contest between democracies and autocracies.