Joint military exercises: here is the gift from Moscow and Beijing for the holidays. The Kremlin announced that several of its warships will participate in maneuvers along with the Chinese Armed Forces in the two weeks between Christmas and New Year. The Russian Ministry of Defense released an official statement: “Operations will take place from December 21 to 27 in the East China Sea. The main objective of the tests is to strengthen naval cooperation and maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Four Russian ships (including the Varyag missile cruiser), which have already left the port of Vladivostok, and six Chinese ships will take part in the exercises, along with aircraft and helicopters from both sides.
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Putin has sought to strengthen political, economic and military ties with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, seeing him as a strong anti-Western ally. For its part, the Dragon has often assumed a vacillating and ambiguous position, despite signing the partnership of “boundless friendship” signed a few days before the invasion of Ukraine.
Today’s announcement is yet another muscle test of the Russian-Chinese axis against the US (read the fibrillation around the disputed island of Taiwan, ed.) and Europe and has a double interpretation: either the Beijing government will never intercede with Russian President Vladimir Putin for negotiations with his counterpart in Kiev, Volodymyr Zelensky (as expected), or, on the contrary, the People’s Republic of China wants to make it clear to the world that it is the only one capable of convincing the Kremlin’s numbers to sit at the negotiating table to end the invasion of Ukraine. Either way, Xi Jinping will benefit.
Source: IL Tempo
John Cameron is a journalist at The Nation View specializing in world news and current events, particularly in international politics and diplomacy. With expertise in international relations, he covers a range of topics including conflicts, politics and economic trends.
