Xi, Putin condemn U.S. dominance as tensions grow
MOSCOW — Chinese President Xi Jinping joined with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in lashing out at U.S. global dominance, highlighting the two powers’ growing confrontation with the administration of Donald Trump.
“Along with the emergence of reverse-globalization and hegemonism, global society faces increasing new challenges,” Xi said Friday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The U.S. is attempting to “impose its jurisdiction across the entire world,” Putin said. This was pushing the world on a “path to permanent conflicts, trade wars, and maybe not only trade ones,” he said.
The Chinese leader’s visit to Russia comes as he seeks to face down Trump in an escalating trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. While China has traditionally avoided being dragged into a direct stand-off with the U.S., the commercial battle is making that increasingly hard to do.
China has seized on the trade war and U.S. disengagement abroad to pitch itself as a champion of globalization. Just before Trump’s inauguration in 2017, Xi defended global trade and multilateralism at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Xi presided over the signature of $20 billion in agreements at his meeting with Putin on Wednesday in Moscow at the start of his three-day visit to Russia, including an accord for Huawei Technologies Co., which faces a U.S. ban from 5G networks, to start pilot zones in Russia with Mobile TeleSystems PJSC.
Putin on Friday named Trump’s campaign against Huawei as an example of U.S. efforts to monopolize the world economy, along with threats of sanctions to try and derail the construction of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to Europe. He said the use of the dollar as an instrument of pressure was undermining its role as a global reserve currency.
Xi, who brought with him two pandas for the Moscow zoo, said at the Kremlin meeting that Russo-Chinese ties had reached their “highest level in history.” On Thursday he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Putin’s alma mater and the Russian leader showed him around his hometown of St. Petersburg.
In recent years since Russia came under U.S. and European sanctions over the Ukraine conflict, Beijing and Moscow have stepped up their economic and defense ties and are coordinating more closely on major international issues such as Syria, Iran and North Korea. Despite rising tensions with the U.S., both Xi and Putin have sought to cultivate relations with Trump.