China's Xi calls for stronger 'strategic coordination' with Russia in Lunar New Year call with Putin

Washington, Feb 10: Chinese President Xi Jinping increased his country's friction with the US and its Western allies by heralding the Lunar Year, vowing greater cooperation and coordination with America's fierce rival in geopolitics -- Russia.

Xi heralded a new year of growing coordination with Russia during a call with counterpart Vladimir Putin on Thursday that comes as the two countries continue to cement their partnership amid friction with the West, media reports from Hong Kong and Kremlin as reported by the American media said.

Xi called up Russian President Putin and said the two sides should "strengthen strategic coordination" and "safeguard the national sovereignty, security and development interests of their respective countries," according to a readout from China's Foreign Ministry.

The Chinese leader also reiterated that the two nations should also "resolutely oppose external interference in their internal affairs. This was an apparent reference to the two leaders' suspicions about the intentions of the Western governments following the US-led Quad assault on China on its hegemony in South China seas and US sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which it has successfully circumvented sending ghost ships to supply oil to countries that are its traditional oil buyers -- India and China.

The call, which came on the eve of China's Lunar New Year, is the latest robust exchange between the two leaders, who reportedly have a warm personal relationship sharing a common objective to counter what they perceive as a world unfairly dominated by the US, a universal policeman.

Which explains Russia's quest for retaking the erstwhile states of the Soviet Union that split during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost to balance the forces in the geopolitical world, strategic affairs experts said.

That also explains Russians intensified quest for taking Ukraine despite western objections and a step towards prepping up attacks on other splintered states from the Soviet Union.

The Sino-Russian initiatives to cement their relationship further is under scrutiny by the Western world led by the US amid concerns that China could support Putin's grinding war in Ukraine. The war has entered the second year with widespread discontent in the Russian military.

China claims impartiality in that conflict but has refused to condemn the illegal invasion and acted as an increasingly critical lifeline for the sanctions-hit Russian economy, CNN analysts said.

"We have withstood many trials and tribulations together (in the past). Looking to the future, China-Russia relations face new development opportunities," Xi told Putin during their call.

The leaders exchanged fresh details on the situation in several regions, including the Middle East, and discussed "the current situation" in Ukraine, according to a readout from the Kremlin.

In the Middle East, "both Russia and China support a political and diplomatic settlement of the Palestinian problem within the generally recognised framework of international law," the Kremlin statement said.

The Chinese statement did not name Ukraine or the Middle East, where geopolitical instability is rampant due to the unending ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. It said the two sides discussed "international and regional hot-spot issues".

The Houthis and Hezbollah stepping up attacks on US bases and the latter's military response threatens to conflagrate the war situation in the Middle East.

Beijing has criticised Israel's response to Hamas' October 7 terror attack, and has backed a two-state solution to establish an independent Palestinian state as a way to resolve the conflict. Even the US wants a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine, existing side-by-side strongly opposed by the Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants to police the Gaza border to protect Israel.

Both Beijing and Moscow are seen to have increased their coordination on international issues in forums like the United Nations in recent years, while also building separate international groupings where they hold sway such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Russia and China trading in Yuan during sanctions on oil purchases is floating the idea of a BRICS pay currency to destabilise the US-led Petrodollar.

Xi and Putin both called for further enhancing their international "multilateral" coordination during the call, the readouts said, mentioning the BRICS and SCO, both of which have expanded their membership over the past year. Russia assumed the rotating annual chair of BRICS earlier this year.

"Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping specifically stressed that close Russia-China interaction is an important stabilising factor in world affairs," the Kremlin statement added.

The leaders also hailed record trade, which last year exceeded a target of $200 billion ahead of schedule. Those ties have been buoyed by discount Russian oil purchases from China and sanctions-hit Russia's increasing reliance on Chinese consumer goods amid its economic isolation.

Putin also praised the Russia-China trade relationship during an interview with American right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson published Thursday.

"Our trade is well-balanced, mutually complementary in high-tech, energy, scientific research and development," Putin said in his remarks, where he referred to Xi as a "colleague and friend," according to a translation provided by Carlson.

Putin has an arrest warrant against him issued by the International Criminal Court over an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia. And on Thursday, Human Rights Watch said the Russian President should face a war crimes inquiry for Moscow's brutal assault on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which killed thousands of people, destroyed countless buildings and was followed by a widespread campaign of Russification.

Thursday's phone conversation between Xi and Putin took place as the two countries celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations this year. Last year, Xi made his symbolically significant first foreign trip of his third term as President to Moscow last March.

Putin made one of just a handful of overseas trips since the start of the war in Ukraine to Beijing in October 2023.