MESOPOTAMIA WATCH LATEST CFR Top of the Agenda : Xi, Putin Affirm Ties Amid Tensions With Washington

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: 15-12-2021 – Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing and Moscow “firmly support each other” after meeting virtually with Russian President Vladimir Putin today, Russian state broadcaster TASS reported.

Kremlin official Yuri Ushakov told Reuters that Xi offered support for Russia’s push for security guarantees from the West, and that both leaders expressed a “negative view” of new alliances such as the so-called Quad partnership and the security pact comprising the United States, Australia, and United Kingdom.

Xi and Putin’s meeting came amid rising tensions between Russia and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries over Russia’s military buildup near its border with Ukraine. Russia gave the United States its proposals (Reuters) for security guarantees during a meeting with a senior U.S. official in Moscow today, Ushakov said.

Analysis

“[The Joe] Biden administration would do well to consider how its successes in rallying friends could impact Beijing’s threat perceptions and unwittingly spur the creation of a rival Chinese-led alliance network,” the Brookings Institution’s Patricia M. Kim writes for Foreign Affairs.

“I do not think [China and Russia] are yet at a point where Beijing would endorse any adventurous action in Ukraine—nor would Russia eagerly side with China if the Chinese decided to invade Taiwan,” Cardiff University’s Sergey Radchenko tells the New York Times. “I would imagine that they would each show a degree of benevolent neutrality toward the other.”

CFR President Richard Haass discusses how to defuse the Russia-Ukraine crisis.