Foreign minister will meet Russian leaders and hold talks, including on Ukraine, with his counterpart Sergey Lavrov during three-day trip
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi will visit Moscow next week amid heightened geopolitical tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine, setting the stage for President Xi Jinping’s planned trip to Russia in May.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun on Friday announced Wang’s three-day trip starting from Monday. It comes as US President Donald Trump is seeking to broker a ceasefire on Ukraine and ease bilateral tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Guo said Wang would meet Russian leaders during the visit and hold talks with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“China is willing to take this visit as an opportunity to work with Russia to promote the implementation of the important consensus reached by the two heads of state,” Guo said.
Both sides would “engage in in-depth communication on the development of Sino-Russian relations in the next stage and international and regional issues of mutual concern to both sides”, he said.
According to Russia’s foreign ministry, Lavrov and Wang will meet on Tuesday, with discussions to include “contacts between the two countries’ leaders and high-profile officials” as well as “the most pressing international issues, including prospects of resolving the Ukraine crisis”, Russian news agency Tass reported on Friday.
In Beijing, Guo spoke highly of bilateral ties led by Xi and Putin, who have met and talked over the phone regularly since the Russian leader launched his aggression against Ukraine over three years ago.
“In recent years … China and Russia have maintained the unwavering spirit of good neighbourhood and friendship … while continuously deepening back-to-back strategic coordination, expanding practical cooperation across various fields, and making significant contributions to the development and revitalisation of both nations while safeguarding the fundamental principles of international relations,” he said.
But Guo sidestepped a question on Putin’s latest proposal to put Ukraine under external governance under the United Nations. “China’s stance on the Ukraine crisis has been consistent and clear,” he said, without elaborating.
China and Russia have maintained close contact since the second Trump administration took office in January, with Wang earlier this month calling Moscow Beijing’s diplomatic priority and China-Russia relations a “constant in a turbulent world, not a variable in geopolitical games”.
Moscow said earlier that Xi had accepted an invitation to visit Moscow in early May, for events on May 9 marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II, while Putin would visit China at the end of August and start of September.
Despite increasing Western scrutiny of China’s growing alignment with Russia amid the Ukraine war, Beijing has insisted it is neutral on Ukraine and dismissed allegations of its “very substantial” support for Putin’s war effort as a “decisive enabler”.
Shortly before the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Xi reaffirmed Beijing’s “no limits” partnership with Moscow in a video call with Putin, hours after Trump’s second inauguration in January.
The pair spoke again last month, days after Trump’s first official call with Putin on February 12, with Xi praising Moscow’s “positive efforts to defuse” the Ukraine crisis.
Wang’s Moscow trip will be the highest-level exchange between the two sides since Trump’s second phone conversation with Putin last week, focusing on Washington’s call for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the normalisation of US-Russia ties.
Highlighting Europe’s concerns about China’s close ties with Russia, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said during a meeting with Wang in Beijing on Thursday that China “has a role to play in convincing Russia to come to the negotiating table with serious and good-faith proposals”.
