New Delhi: President Xi Jinping on Friday said the strategic ties between China and Russia stood at a historical starting point despite opposition from the US as his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin wound up his two-day visit expressing readiness to pursue a negotiated settlement to end the war in Ukraine.

Putin arrived here on Thursday to mark his first visit to China after his re-election in March and held several rounds of talks with Xi besides signing a vision document to continue their strategic cooperative partnership.

The future is bright for China-Russia relations, President Xi said in his message to the 8th Russian-Chinese Expo at Harbin as he noted that this year marks the 75th anniversary of China-Russia diplomatic ties.

“Standing at a new historical starting point, bilateral relations will embrace new historical opportunities and show broader prospects for development,” Xi said. Putin, who attended the China-Russia expo at Harbin, about 1,300 km northeast of Beijing and almost near its border with Russia, said, unlike Kyiv, Russia has never refused to negotiate with Ukraine to end the war.

Both Putin, 71, and Xi, 70, spoke of dialogue to settle the over two-year Ukraine war started by Russia. While Xi regards his ties with Putin as a counter to the US’ increasing hostility towards China, which Beijing says is aimed at countering its rise, there is unease here over Putin’s continuation of the Ukraine war.

Though Beijing has not publically supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the no-limits China-Russia strategic partnership has come under intense scrutiny from the US and its allies, who have imposed sanctions on Moscow and repeatedly called Beijing to use its leverage to bring the war to an end.

Winding up his two-day visit to China, Putin expressed his inclination to find a negotiated settlement to end the Ukraine war. Unlike Kyiv, Russia has never refused to negotiate with Ukraine to end the war, Putin was quoted by the Russian news agency Tass as speaking during his visit to Harbin.

He recalled that Moscow “never refused to negotiate,” and it was politicians in Kyiv who “withdrew from the negotiation process” as soon as troops were pulled back from Kiev. “We were deceived once again,” Putin said.

“Now we have to understand who we should do business with and how. Who and to what extent we can trust. And, of course, we are now analysing everything that is happening on this track,” Putin told Russian journalists accompanying him on his visit to China.

Media reports quoted Putin saying that the partnership between China and Russia “is not directed against anyone,” a veiled reference to the West. Both Russia and China have frequently spoken of the “emerging multipolar world” in response to what they view as US hegemony.

Earlier on Thursday evening, Xi and Putin held a restrictive meeting at Zhongnanhai, the highly guarded residential complex of top ruling Chinese Communist Party leaders, in Beijing where the two leaders had an in-depth exchange of views on the Ukraine crisis, according to official media reports here.

Xi elaborated on China’s position and efforts to promote the political settlement of the Ukraine issue, stressing that to deal with any major issue, it is necessary to address both the symptoms and the root causes, and to plan for the present as well as for the long term.

China supports the convening of an international peace conference recognised by Russia and Ukraine at an appropriate time with equal participation and fair discussion of all options, to push for an early political settlement of the Ukraine issue, and China stands ready to continue to play a constructive role in this regard, Xi said. Putin welcomed China to continue to play an important and constructive role in the political settlement of the Ukraine war.

Russia is committed to resolving the Ukraine issue through political negotiations and is willing to demonstrate sincerity and maintain close communication with China in this regard, he said.

On day one of the visit, a joint statement issued after Putin-Xi talks said that both sides believe that for “a sustainable settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, it is necessary to eliminate its root causes.”  

“China hopes that peace and stability will return to the European continent at an early date, and stands ready to play a constructive role to this end,” Xi said at a joint press conference with Putin after their talks.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, China hit back at Principal Deputy Spokesperson of the US State Department Vedant Patel’s remark that “China cannot have its cake and eat it too” meaning Beijing cannot maintain close ties with EU and Russia at the same time saying that Washington is responsible for the Ukraine crisis.

Xi recently returned from a three-nation European Union tour where he held talks on ending the Ukraine conflict with EU leaders. In his talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, Xi pledged that China would not sell arms to Russia and would control the flow of dual-use goods to its military.

The US too is mounting pressure on China not to sell arms to Russia to further its war in Ukraine. “China can’t have it both ways. You can’t purport to claim to want to deepen and strengthen your relationships with Europe while continuing to fuel one of the biggest threats to European security in many, many decades” Patel told the media in Washington on Tuesday.

Responding to Patel’s statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told media here that “those words reflect a Manichaean mindset of the United States, which drives a constant search for an enemy rather than peace”.

“This is a reflection of the Cold War mentality that still dominates US thinking, which bears unshirkable responsibility for the eruption and escalation of the Ukraine crisis”, he said.

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)