China and
Russia have maintained normal exchanges and promoted cooperation, showing the “strong resilience” and “strategic resolve” of their relations, Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, said on Thursday.
China will also support all efforts conducive to the peaceful resolution of the
Ukraine crisis, Wang told Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in a meeting on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, according to a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.
Earlier in the week, China attacked the US and Nato, stating that Washington “observes international rules only as it sees fit”. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing that the “so-called rules-based international order is actually a family rule made by a handful of countries to serve the US self-interest”.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken will hold separate talks with Wang “to discuss having guardrails” on US-China relations so that competition “does not spill over into miscalculation or confrontation”, said US assistant secretary of state Daniel Kritenbrink.
“This will be another opportunity ... to convey our expectations about what we would expect China to do and not to do in the context of Ukraine,” he said.
Wang spoke to Lavrov on Thursday ahead of the G20 meeting as the pair were pictured in a bilateral meeting on the Indonesian resort island. A Russian foreign ministry statement said Lavrov informed Wang “about the implementation of the main missions of the special military operation” in Ukraine and reiterated Moscow’s rhetoric that its aim is to “denazify” the country.
“Both parties underlined the unacceptable nature of unilateral sanctions adopted by circumventing the UN,” the statement said. Beijing has upheld friendly ties with Russia as Western nations have sought to isolate Vladimir Putin’s government.