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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend a group photo ceremony at the BRICS Summit, in Kazan, Russia, on Oct. 24, 2024.Maxim Shipenkov/The Canadian Press

Chinese President Xi Jinping is flying to Russia on Wednesday for a four-day visit underlining Beijing and Moscow’s “no limits” strategic partnership in the face of Western pressure.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to power in January, Washington has sought to rebuild ties with Russia, pushing for peace talks in Ukraine on the Kremlin’s terms and exempting the Russian economy from the stringent tariffs Mr. Trump has threatened almost every other country with.

Some of Mr. Trump’s supporters have advocated for a “reverse Nixon” approach, improving relations with Moscow and isolating Beijing in a mirror of president Richard Nixon’s embrace of Mao Zedong’s China after the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s.

Most analysts regard this as highly unlikely however. Mr. Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin have a long-standing close relationship, and Beijing has been Moscow’s most vital ally since the invasion of Ukraine, propping up the Russian economy and helping to dilute the effect of Western sanctions.

U.S. and European intelligence agencies have accused China of going further than this behind the scenes, providing Russia with key armaments and even troops, with Chinese mercenaries recently documented fighting on the Kremlin’s side in Ukraine. Beijing has consistently denied such support and publicly called for a negotiated end to the conflict.

While in Russia, Mr. Xi is expected to sign numerous agreements strengthening the two nations’ partnership. China already buys more Russian oil and gas than any other country, while Beijing may be keen to export more consumer goods to Russia to offset U.S. tariffs amid a trade war with Washington.

“The upcoming visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Russia is one of the central events in Russian-Chinese relations this year,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on the eve of the visit. “The upcoming Russian-Chinese summit will send an important signal to the international community about the common approaches of Russia and China in defending the postwar world order.”

On Tuesday, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said Mr. Xi’s visit would “inject new momentum into the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership” and “demonstrate the two major countries’ commitment to working with the rest of the world to safeguard the outcomes of the victory in World War II, uphold international fairness and justice and maintain world peace and stability.”

Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council and author of the China-Russia Report newsletter, said that for all the talk of a potential “reverse Nixon,” Beijing and Moscow “view Trump 2.0 as a golden opportunity to weaken transatlantic cohesion.”

“Xi and Putin will likely co-ordinate efforts to exploit growing U.S.-Europe rifts, even if their interests aren’t fully aligned,” he told The Globe and Mail.

Mr. Xi, who has told Mr. Putin that the two have a chance to drive “changes the world has not seen in a century,” is due to hold talks with the Russian President on Thursday and to join other world leaders on Moscow’s Red Square on Friday to watch a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies over Nazi Germany.

Mr. Putin has framed his invasion of Ukraine as a continuation of the fight against global fascism, repeatedly calling the democratically-elected government in Kyiv – under President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish – a “neo-Nazi regime.”

Kyiv has urged world leaders to boycott the celebration in Moscow, saying Russia is using it as an opportunity to “whitewash” its actions in Ukraine.

“The Russian army has committed and continues to commit atrocities in Ukraine on a scale that Europe has not seen since World War II,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. “This is the army that will march on Red Square in Moscow on May 9. These people are not liberators of Europe, they are occupants and war criminals. To march side by side with them is to share responsibility for the blood of murdered Ukrainian children, civilian and military, not to honour the victory over Nazism.”

Since Mr. Trump’s tariffs plunged the global economy into chaos, Beijing has sought to present itself as a more responsible actor than Washington, reaching out to Europe and countries across Asia reeling from the threatened levies. Writing this week, Patricia M. Kim, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said this approach has been undermined by Beijing’s continued public support for the Kremlin.

“The image of Xi in Moscow underscores the growing tension at the heart of China’s foreign policy: Its strategic partnership with Russia increasingly collides with its broader ambitions to be seen as a responsible global leader, as a steadying alternative to what it depicts as American volatility and Western decline,” she said.

“Beijing’s ideal outcome is a Russia strong enough to push back against the West, but weak enough to remain securely in China’s orbit. Managing this delicate balance, however, is becoming more difficult – and carries global consequences.”

With reports from Reuters

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