China’s new US-sanctioned Defense Minister Li Shangfu visited Russia this week, his first trip abroad since taking office, as Beijing and Moscow further align to confront the United States.
General Li was received by President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, almost immediately after his arrival in Moscow. During the four-day visit, Li also held talks with his counterpart Sergei Shoigu and paid a visit to Russia’s top military academy, the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
“New breakthroughs have been made in strategic communication, joint exercises and training, and practical cooperation, which have enriched the strategic connotations of the China-Russia comprehensive strategic coordination partnership for a new era,” said Col. Tan Kefei, spokesman for the China’s Ministry of National Defense said in a Press release without giving more details.
The Russian and Chinese defense ministries “reiterated their joint resistance to attempts by external forces to interfere in each other’s internal affairs,” Tan said.
Li’s trip came less than a month after Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s state visit, Xi’s first overseas tour after being re-elected as China’s state president.
China and Russia have been seen to try form a new world order and the presence of the head of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army could signal a “new military alliance to challenge the Pentagon,” said a commentator on China Todaya Beijing-supported supplement to the Russian news portal Svobodnaya Pressa.
Konstantin Olshansky said the trip shows that “Beijing openly supports Moscow in the Ukrainian conflict.”
China has so far refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but maintains that it will not provide weapons to either side in the conflict.
Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a US think tank, said in an interview with RFA Mandarin Service that the Russian and Chinese presidents had likely discussed “possible ways that China can support the invasion of Ukraine by of Russia, both diplomatically and through logistical support”. .”
US sanctioned
Li Shangfu, 65, is an aerospace expert. He became China’s defense minister at the National People’s Congress in March.
In 2018, Li, then director of the Department of Equipment Development of the Central Military Commission, was sanctioned by the US State Department for purchasing Russian fighter jets and equipment related to the S-S-surface-to-air missile system. 400.
The sanctions mean that “direct contacts between the Defense Minister and his counterpart in the Pentagon” are impossible, said Adil Kaukenov, a Russian expert on China.
“The Chinese defense minister has no ties to US military circles, which are especially necessary given the dangerous situation in the Taiwan Strait,” Kaukenov wrote in his telegram channel.
“But Li has close business ties to Russian military circles, in fact, so he imposed sanctions on himself,” he added, hinting that with Li Shangfu at the helm, the relationship between the PLA and the Russian military would see an improvement. unprecedented close collaboration.
During his stay in Moscow, Li discussed “strategic cooperation” with Russian military leaders and vowed to take bilateral ties “to a new level,” according to both defense ministries.
The two armed forces are expected to have more exchanges of personnel and technologies.
Zhang Hong, a research associate at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted by the Global Times newspaper as saying that “more military services could start to have exchanges, such as strategic rocket forces . .”
“Russia previously announced that it is helping China to develop a missile early warning system,” Zhang said.
Meanwhile, Svobodnaya Pressa’s Olshansky said the PLA has long been interested in Russia’s advanced technologies, as “Moscow is still far ahead of Beijing in many innovative technologies, from aircraft engines to nuclear submarines.”
Perhaps not coincidentally, when Li Shangfu was visiting Moscow, the Russian Navy conducted a flash exercise of its Pacific Fleet from April 14 to 20 in the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, near the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, which are at the center of a longstanding dispute between Russia and Japan.
The Pacific Fleet, based in Vladivostok, is responsible for a vast area of the Russian Far East region along the Pacific coast.
More than 25,000 soldiers, 89 aircraft and 167 warships, including 12 submarines, took part in the surprise combat drills, according to the Russian military TV channel Zvezda.
“The Russian Pacific Fleet puts on quite a show, including ASW (anti-submarine warfare) forces and amphibious landings as well,” said Lyle Goldstein, a Russia and China expert at the Defense Priorities think tank in Washington DC.
“I have to suspect this might have been timed to impress” the visiting Chinese defense minister, the analyst tweeted.
“If Russia can intimidate/distract Japan, that should please China,” he added.
Edited by Mike Firn.
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