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BEIJING , Sep 13 (AP) \u2014 Chinese President Xi Jinping is using his first trip abroad since the start of the pandemic to promote his country\u2019s strategic ambitions at a summit with Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin and other leaders of a Central Asian security group.<\/p>\n
The Chinese leader is promoting a \u201cGlobal Security Initiative\u201d announced in April following the formation of the Quad by Washington, Japan, Australia and India in response to Beijing\u2019s more assertive foreign policy. Xi has given few details, but U.S. officials complain it echoes Russian arguments in support of Moscow\u2019s attack on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Xi, 69, is due to meet Putin in Uzbekistan this week at a summit of the eight-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which also includes Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina and Russia share the same stance in opposing the Western practice of imposing sanctions and overthrowing regimes of other countries,\u201d said Li Xin, director of Shanghai University of Political Science and Law\u2019s Institute of European and Asian Studies.<\/p>\n
Xi\u2019s trip at a time when his government is urging the Chinese public to avoid foreign travel under its \u201czero COVID\u201d strategy emphasizes the importance to the ruling Communist Party of asserting China\u2019s role as a regional leader.<\/p>\n
The summit takes Xi abroad at a time when the party is preparing for an October congress where he is expected to break with political tradition and try to award himself a third five-year term as leader.<\/p>\n
That suggests Xi, China\u2019s most powerful leader since at least the 1980s, is confident he doesn\u2019t need to stay home to make political deals. It also might help to promote his standing with nationalists in the ruling party.<\/p>\n
Xi\u2019s government has refused to criticize Putin\u2019s attack on Ukraine. It accuses the United States of provoking the conflict.<\/p>\n
Xi declared the two governments had a \u201cno limits\u201d friendship when the Russian leader attended the Winter Olympics in Beijing ahead of the Feb. 24 attack on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The two governments have no alliance and have differing interests in Europe, said Wang Yiwei, an international relations expert at Renmin University in Beijing. He said the \u201cno limits\u201d language is meant to give them leverage in dealing with the West on Taiwan and other issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a deterrence,\u201d Wang said. He said China wants an independent foreign policy. \u201cIf we put China and Russia too close, it\u2019s not necessarily good for China,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Xi has participated in other global gatherings by video link. His only trip outside the Chinese mainland since early 2020 was a one-day visit to Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of the end of British colonial rule.<\/p>\n
Other SCO governments are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Iran and Afghanistan are observers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Shanghai Cooperation Organization is attracting more countries with a new principle that is completely different from the West in handling relations between nations,\u201d Li said.<\/p>\n
China sees the group, founded under Xi\u2019s predecessor, Hu Jintao, as a counterweight to U.S. alliances across East Asia to the Indian Ocean. Beijing has taken part in in multi-government military exercises, showing off its fast-developing forces.<\/p>\n
Relations with Washington, Europe, Japan and India are increasingly tense over complaints about trade, technology, security, Taiwan, Hong Kong, human rights and territorial conflicts at sea and in the Himalayas.<\/p>\n
In April, Xi said the \u201cGlobal Security Initiative\u201d was intended to \u201duphold the principle of indivisibility of security\u201d and \u201coppose the building of national security on the basis of insecurity in other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the bland language, U.S. officials and Asian security analysts see Xi\u2019s initiative as a tactic by China, with the world\u2019s second-largest military after the United States, to dominate the region.<\/p>\n
A State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, said in April it appeared to \u201cparrot some of what we have heard coming from the Kremlin\u201d as justification for the attack on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a blatant effort at the pursuit of an Asian hegemony by China,\u201d wrote Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan of the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank, in The Diplomat. It is \u201cdesigned to promote China\u2019s interests in its great power competition with the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a July meeting, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that China would \u201cstrengthen strategic communication\u201d with Moscow about international security, according to a statement by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.<\/p>\n
That will \u201cshow the basic momentum of China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership\u201d and \u201cpractice true multilateralism,\u201d the ministry said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING , Sep 13 (AP) \u2014 Chinese President Xi Jinping is using his first trip abroad since the start of the pandemic to promote his country\u2019s strategic ambitions at a summit with Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin and other leaders of a Central Asian security group. The Chinese leader is promoting a \u201cGlobal Security Initiative\u201d announced in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-200419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}