Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow on Monday, seeking both to deepen economic ties with an ally he sees as a useful counterweight to the West and promote Beijing’s role as a potential peacemaker in Ukraine.
Xi will be the first leader to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him on Friday over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow said the charge was one of several “clearly hostile displays” and opened a criminal case against the ICC prosecutor and judges. Beijing said the warrant reflected double standards.
Russia is presenting Xi’s trip, his first since securing an unprecedented third term this month, as evidence that it has a powerful friend in its standoff with a hostile West.
“We can feel the geopolitical landscape in the outside world undergoing drastic changes,” Putin said in an article in China’s People’s Daily published on the Kremlin website, adding that he had high hopes for the visit of his “good old friend”.
