TASS issued its selection of key points from the 16-page document issued today, “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development.” The full statement is posted to the Kremlin website (http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770), and in Chinese to the Foreign Ministry site (https://www.mfa.gov.cn/zyxw/202202/t20220204_10638953.shtml).
Relations between Moscow and Beijing
• The new type of Russian-Chinese relations surpasses the military-political alliances of the Cold War: “Friendship between the two states has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation, strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation is neither aimed against third countries nor affected by the changing international environment and circumstantial changes in third countries.”
• Moscow points to the positive significance of the Chinese concept of a “community with a common destiny for mankind,” and Beijing highlights the positive role of Russian efforts to form a fair, multipolar system of international relations.
• Russia and China intend to intensify the integration of the development plans of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Belt and Road Initiative and will strengthen cooperation within the framework of multilateral mechanisms, including the UN.
• Moscow and Beijing will increase cooperation in the development and production of vaccines and drugs against coronavirus. They oppose the politicization of the origin of a new infection—it is a “matter of science.”
• The parties intend to firmly uphold the inviolability of the results of the Second World War and the established post-war world order, and resist attempts to distort and falsify its history.
U.S. and NATO
• Russia and China oppose further NATO expansion and call on the alliance to abandon Cold War approaches. Beijing “understands and supports” Russian proposals for the formation of long-term security guarantees in Europe.
• They oppose the formation of “closed bloc structures and opposing camps” in the Asia-Pacific region and “remain highly vigilant about the negative impact on peace and stability” of the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy. In particular, both sides are seriously concerned about the establishment of the AUKUS partnership between the U.S., U.K. and Australia.
• Moscow and Beijing are urging Washington to abandon plans to deploy ground-based intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region and will strengthen coordination on this issue.
• The parties also condemn the withdrawal of the United States from a number of international treaties: “The denunciation of a number of important international agreements in the field of arms control by the United States has an extremely negative impact on international and regional security and stability.”
