During a three-day visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping left Moscow not long after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida did the same from Kyiv.
On Tuesday, March 21, Kishida paid a surpise visit to Kyiv, deflecting some attention away from Xi’s trip to Moscow, where he supported Beijing’s peace proposal for Ukraine, which Western countries have already rejected.
Press organizations in Russia reported After a meeting with Putin on Wednesday that the two leaders heralded as the beginning of a “new era” in their relationship, Xi departed Moscow. The Russian and Chinese national anthems were played as a guard of honor waved off the Chinese president’s jet as it departed Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, according to the RIA Novosti news agency. The farewell was attended by high-ranking Russian government representatives.
During the visit, Putin and Xi addressed Beijing’s suggestions for resolving the Ukraine crisis and hailed a “new era” in their relationship. According to Western nations, Russia may be able to freeze a significant portion of the Ukrainian area it has acquired thanks to China’s peace proposals.
Following the meetings, Putin and Xi released joint statements promising to strengthen their “strategic cooperation,” advance collaboration in the energy and high-tech sectors, among other areas, and increase the use of their respective currencies in bilateral trade to lessen reliance on the West. They pledged to increase military coordination and cooperative air and sea patrols, but they made no mention of the possibility of Chinese weapon shipments to Russia, which alarmed the US and other Western allies.
