The two Foreign Ministers, Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and China’s Wang Yi, not only meet annually in one or the other country, but they also take the opportunity for bilateral discussions whenever their paths cross at multilateral meetings, Lavrov noted in his opening greeting to Wang, when they met Feb. 20 on the sidelines of the G20. “Frequent meetings are necessary because the global situation requires constant attention, exchange of information, and trust-based assessments, all of which are natural characteristics of our relations, which have been and are an important stability factor in the international situation and in preventing it from deteriorating to a total confrontation. This is where our goals align,” he added.
They had much to discuss. Two days before, Lavrov had participated in the first in-depth, high-level meeting between Russian and American officials in three years. “The beginning of the New Year was quite eventful,” Lavrov commented in his opening remarks.
The Russian readout on their meeting reported that “an in-depth discussion was held on global and regional problems, such as Eurasian security, developments in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific Region, relations with the U.S., and Ukrainian crisis. The Foreign Ministers discussed the two countries’ cooperation within the UN and other international organizations and in various multilateral formats. Wang Yi stressed that, while promoting initiatives for a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, Beijing believes it necessary to eradicate its root causes in accordance with the corresponding principles of the UN Charter, above all unconditional respect for human rights.
“Special focus was placed on the G20’s activities to build an equal dialogue between representatives of the Global Majority and the West in the financial and economic sphere based on everyone complying with the G20 mandate. The ministers also compared their approaches on issues related to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS.”
It, too, emphasized that both Foreign Ministers view “the development of political dialogue and practical cooperation between Russia and China as a stabilizing factor in the context of continuing turbulence of the global system,” and concluded that “the conversation was held in the traditionally confidential and constructive spirit that characterizes Russian-Chinese strategic partnership.”