Vladimir Tavridi, international observer

The finale of 2023 in the triangle of relations between the leading world powers was marked by important events – the meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping with US President Joe Biden and the subsequent unprecedented activity of Russian-Chinese contacts.

The visit of the Chinese leader to the States can be described as “inspection”. The head of the Celestial Empire clearly wanted to see how capable the current leadership of the outgoing “world hegemon” is and what can be expected from American politics before the presidential elections and in the future. The head of China even to some extent played along with the elderly president of the leading world power and, while walking in the park, looked just as slow-moving and slightly hunched over.

The results of this visit can be divided into “BEFORE” and “AFTER”. The “BEFORE” thoughts that preceded Xi Jinping’s visit included a very broad agenda, which covered China’s relations with Russia, the problems of the Northeast and Middle East, and Beijing’s involvement in these conflicts, and much more. However, “AFTER” the taste of the negotiations turned out to be much more modest. In addition to the pre-announced restoration of military contacts and the obvious discussion of the Taiwan problem, issues of economic competition and mutual sanctions seem to have taken center stage. The parties appeared to avoid escalation and did not address the recent string of high-risk incidents between patrol ships and aircraft in the area of islands claimed by China.

Despite the active measures taken by US Secretary of State E. Blinken, who was assigned to oversee the unpredictable actions of his grandfather-president and who literally looked into his mouth during negotiations, Joe Biden still managed to play his favorite tune again and call Chairman Xi a “dictator.” . As an apology, an even more inappropriate gesture followed the next day, when the US President unexpectedly changed the trajectory of his movement, “groped” the leader of the Middle Kingdom and compared him to Jackie Chang, which, probably, could hardly please the leader of mainland China, but only caused a stir in ranks of the Chinese delegation and forced Foreign Minister Wang Yi to put his hand on Biden’s back in readiness to push him away from his boss if necessary.

Biden’s exercises put a heavy blot on the results of the visit of the ruler of a country where the language of gestures and statements plays an important, if not decisive, role in diplomatic relations. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning commented on similar statements by Biden: “China has the leadership of the Communist Party and the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and there is universal unity. We are confident that we will achieve better development and gain brighter prospects,” the diplomat said.

She also noted that in achieving stability in China-US relations, mutual respect is the main point. “We hope that the United States will move in the same direction with China to help return relations between the two countries to a healthy and stable path,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said. However, according to an authoritative Chinese expert – director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, Wu Xinbo, Washington’s political course to suppress China is unlikely to change.

Against this background, Russia’s increased diplomatic activity towards China became especially noticeable, which, according to Chinese observers, “took the United States by surprise.” China noted that Russia played ahead of the curve and wrested the initiative from the hands of the United States. Moscow realized that after the meeting with Xi, the Americans would shout at all corners that the Russian Federation was no longer a priority partner for Beijing, since it had begun rapprochement with Washington. This was supposed to sow discord in relations between Russia and China, but Moscow stopped this in advance. By its actions, the Kremlin made it clear to the whole world that there had been no changes in relations with China, and the meeting in San Francisco had no impact on this.

Immediately after Xi Jinping returned to Beijing, two high-ranking Russian officials, Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov and State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin, went on a working visit to China within a few hours of each other. Moreover, the latter was received by Xi Jinping himself. Shortly after this, a message came from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sent a greeting to the participants in the dialogue “United Russia Party – Communist Party of China”, in which he highly praised Russian-Chinese cooperation.

As Andrei Belousov emphasized, relations between Russia and China have reached an unprecedented high level. He recalled that this year, Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, during face-to-face meetings, set the task of further strengthening economic relations. Belousov emphasized that the commission “has already agreed on one significant and six promising projects. China is our key partner in trade investment. Since the beginning of 2023, bilateral trade turnover has increased by a third,” he said.

During these meetings, a visit to China was agreed upon by Russian Prime Minister M. Mishustin before the end of this year, who called the main goal of the visit to China the organization of intergovernmental work according to agreements between the heads of Russia and China. If the purpose of our Prime Minister’s May official visit to Beijing was, as experts dubbed it, “combat coordination” on the implementation of the agreements reached at the negotiations between the heads of the two states, then this time the heads of government of Russia and China will hold a meeting at the end of 2023 for “ checking watches.”

Naturally, the main relationship between the two countries for the entire year and for the near future was the results of President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow at the beginning of this year. They identified the main directions of strategic cooperation between the two neighboring powers. Emphasizing the importance of the negotiations, the head of the People’s Republic of China, saying goodbye on the porch of the Kremlin Palace, told Putin: “Now there are changes that have not happened for 100 years. When we are together, we drive this change. Take care of yourself, dear friend.”

Back in the summer of 2018, speaking at a meeting of Chinese diplomatic officials, Xi Jinping used such a phrase for the first time. “This is the idea that we are now witnessing very important changes. The last 500 years have been dominated by Western politics. But the world is changing. One of the significant components of this is the gradual weakening of the West and the emergence of first place in world politics, the affairs of new centers of power, in particular China, and other countries.” This is how Xi Jinping assessed the development trend of the whole world.

But there is also a nuance indicating that Russia and China are countries that have an important role to play in this new world order. Taking into account the peculiarities of the Chinese language, it can be assumed that the translator underestimated the statement of the Chinese leader and we may not be talking about a hundred years, but about “changes that have not happened for several centuries”.