China’s top diplomat Wang Yi starts on Monday a four-day trip to Russia during which both countries are anticipated to promise more strengthened collaborative political trust, readying for a possible landmark visit by President Vladimir Putin to Beijing in October. Mr Wang, who heads the foreign ministry as well as the governing Communist Party’s foreign affairs office, will meet Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev for yearly safety conversations, the Chinese foreign ministry conveyed in a statement.
The veteran diplomat’s conversations with counterpart Sergei Lavrov will cover a “so many problems”, which also considers and involves “rapports at higher and the highest levels”, the Russian foreign ministry revealed latest week. Mr Wang is anticipated to lay the groundwork for Mr Putin’s visit to the Chinese capital for the third Belt and Road Forum after an invitation by President Xi Jinping during a high-profile visit to Moscow in March.
Mr Putin became a part of the China’s first two Belt and Road Forums in 2017 and 2019. But he is not recognised to have travelled abroad since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant in opposition to him Because of the allegations of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. On Sept 1, Mr Putin conveyed he anticipated to meet Mr Xi soon, but did not clearly said that he would be visiting China one more time.
The warrant, enforced just days ahead of Mr Xi’s visit to Russia, compels the court’s 123 member states to arrest Mr Putin and transfer him to the Hague for trial if he enters their territory. However, China is not a party to the Rome Statute that resulted to the making of the ICC in 2002. The visiting will also make sure of the in depth conversations of views on problems involving Ukraine, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week.
Mr Wang last visited Russia in February on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, frightening the United States, which alleged the two countries at the time of sharing a vision in which “borders could be redrawn by force”. Ahead of this week’s coming, Mr Wang went to Malta for hours of “useful” in depth conversations with White House national safety adviser Jake Sullivan. The weekend conversations were the last in a series of high-level meetings between US and Chinese officials that could put the foundation for a meeting in 2023 between Mr Xi and US President Joe Biden.