Lavrov in China on 1st visit since invasion
China’s foreign minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday met in a Chinese province on Wednesday, reaffirming bilateral ties and criticising economic sanctions imposed by the West against Moscow for invading Ukraine as “illegal” and “counter-productive”, official statements said.
It is Lavrov’s first visit to China after Russia invaded its smaller neighbour Ukraine on February 24. Wang held talks with Lavrov in Tunxi city, in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, where China is holding a two-day multilateral meeting on Afghanistan.
Wang said Chinese and Russian relations had “withstood the test of international turbulence” and there was an increased willingness by them to develop relations that had “grown resiliently”, China’s Phoenix TV reported.
“There is no ceiling for ChinaRussia cooperation, no ceiling for us to strive for peace, no ceiling for us to safeguard security and no ceiling for us to oppose hegemony,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, told a media briefing in Beijing. “China-Russia relations are non-aligned, non-confrontational and not targeted at any third party.”
Unlike western nations, China has refused to condemn the invasion or even call it one.
“The ministers had a thorough exchange of views on the situation around Ukraine. The head of the Russian foreign ministry informed his Chinese counterpart about the progress of the special military operation ... and the dynamics of the negotiation process with the Kyiv regime,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The sides noted the counterproductive nature of the illegal unilateral sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and its satellites,” it added.