Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Chinese Premier Li Qiang shake hands before their talks in Beijing on May 24, 2023. (Alexander Astafyev / SPUTNIK / AFP)
BEIJING, China -- Russia's prime minister hailed "unprecedented" relations with China despite "sensational pressure" from the West on Wednesday, as he met with his counterpart in Beijing. China and Russia have in recent years ramped up economic and diplomatic cooperation, growing even closer since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine despite Beijing's insistence that it is neutral in that conflict. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin arrived in China on Monday, attending a business forum in Shanghai on Tuesday before travelling to Beijing to meet Premier Li Qiang and President Xi Jinping. It is the highest-level visit by a Russian official to China since last year's invasion. "Today, relations between Russia and China are at an unprecedented high level," Mishustin told Li after a grand welcoming ceremony outside Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Wednesday. "They are characterised by mutual respect of each other's interests, the desire to jointly respond to challenges, which is associated with increased turbulence in the international arena and the pattern of sensational pressure from the collective West," he said. Li, in turn, hailed the "comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Russia in the new era". "I believe your trip to China this time will definitely leave a deep impression," he said. China is Russia's largest trading partner, with trade between the nations reaching a record $190 billion last year, according to Chinese customs data. Li noted Wednesday that bilateral trade had already reached $70 billion so far this year. "This is a year-on-year increase of more than 40 percent," he said. "The scale of investment between the two countries is also continuously upgrading," Li added. "Strategic large-scale projects are steadily advancing." Following the talks, ministers from the two countries signed a series of agreements on service trade cooperation and sports, as well as on patents and Russian millet exports to China.

China's upper hand

Mishustin is accompanied by top officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who handles energy policy. China last year became Russia's top energy customer as Moscow's gas exports otherwise plummeted due to a flurry of Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine. According to Russian state media, Novak told Tuesday's forum in Shanghai that Russian energy supplies to China would increase by 40 percent year-on-year in 2023. Analysts say China holds the upper hand in the relationship with Russia, and that its sway is growing as Moscow's international isolation deepens. The leaders of both countries are "brought together more by shared grievances and insecurities than by shared goals", Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at Washington's Brookings Institution and a former White House official, told AFP. "They both resent and feel threatened by Western leadership in the international system and believe their countries should be given greater deference on issues implicating their own interests." In February, Beijing released a paper calling for a "political settlement" to the Ukraine conflict, but Western countries said it could enable Russia to hold much of the territory it has seized. During their March summit in Moscow, Xi invited Putin to visit Beijing.