BEIJING: Ten years after toasting a budding friendship with vodka and cake, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will meet again in Beijing this week seeking to further deepen the “no-limits” partnership between their two countries.
The two presidents share a strong personal bond, with Xi calling his Russian counterpart his “best friend” and Putin cherishing his “reliable partner.”
Their relationship has been a constant despite a decade of increasingly difficult relations with Western countries — exemplified by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which China has refused to condemn.
Putin’s attendance at a leaders forum in the Chinese capital this week is not only a rare foreign trip for the Russian leader, but also an opportunity to pay homage to Xi’s signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
“(The) Russian delegation’s presence in Beijing is important for Moscow,” said Alicja Bachulska, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“It will legitimize Russia in the international arena by creating a positive image of Putin not being completely isolated in the context of war,” she told AFP.
Xi and Putin forged their friendship when the pair shared cake and vodka shots to mark the Russian leader’s birthday at a summit in Indonesia in 2013.
They have since drawn closer, with Xi whisking Putin away on a high-speed train ride across China to make traditional steamed buns in 2018.
Putin later returned the favor with caviar-topped pancakes and a river cruise on Xi’s subsequent visits to Russia.
In 2019, the Russian leader even threw Xi a birthday bash of his own, surprising him with ice cream at a conference in Tajikistan.
The two men’s lives share several similarities — they were born just a few months apart in the early 1950s and have both fathered daughters.
They are products of two socialist giants, with Xi the scion of a family of Communist revolutionaries and Putin a former Soviet intelligence officer.
Both are haunted by the collapse of the USSR — for Putin, a “major geopolitical disaster” and for Xi, a cautionary tale for China’s own Communist Party.
And both have invoked themes of national revitalization while suppressing dissent during their long and increasingly unchallenged years in power.
Mirroring their leaders’ ties, Beijing and Moscow have also huddled closer in recent years, viewing each other as a counterbalance against the US-led West.
The two countries describe their relationship as a “comprehensive strategic partnership” that has “no limits” on potential cooperation.
Their amity has endured despite Russia’s frontal assault on Ukraine since last year, thrusting Moscow and Putin into international isolation.
Beijing has resisted calls to condemn the invasion and depicted itself as a neutral party, stopping short of providing weapons for Moscow.
But it has echoed Russia in blaming Western countries — especially the NATO defense alliance — for creating the conditions for the war’s outbreak.
Joe Webster, an expert on China-Russia relations at the Atlantic Council, described Beijing’s stance on the war as “pro-Russia neutrality.”
That has involved crucial diplomatic, economic and non-lethal military assistance for Moscow against a background of booming bilateral trade, he said.
But he added that the aborted mutiny by Russian mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin this summer “shocked Beijing and led it to recalibrate relations with Moscow.”
The threat of Putin’s ouster means “Beijing (now) seeks to depersonalize the relationship and institutionalize ties between the two political systems... to ensure close ties with Russia regardless of who occupies the power vertical,” Webster said.
The subtle shift in rhetoric illuminates the lopsided nature of the China-Russia relationship — one that sees Moscow increasingly relying on its neighbor to prop up its economy and help sustain its war machine.
“Since Moscow embarked on its all-out invasion of Ukraine, it has been put in a position where it is unprecedentedly dependent on China,” said Bjorn Alexander Duben, an international relations scholar at China’s Jilin University.
“(Russia’s) continued economic engagement with China is gradually turning into a relationship of direct dependence — raising the question whether Russia is steering toward a client relationship with Beijing,” he said.
Analysts said that Putin’s sojourn in the Chinese capital was more focused on shoring up political support than securing big-ticket deals like the much-touted Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline.
“We might see results in the coming (months and) years with infrastructure projects being realized, but I don’t expect any kind of significant big deliverables this time,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
“China holds all of these cards. Russia would desperately want to have an announced deal, but China has leverage and can dictate the pace,” he said.
Xi, Putin to freshen decade-long friendship at Beijing summit
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Xi, Putin to freshen decade-long friendship at Beijing summit
Thousands to be evacuated after Mount Ibu eruption
TERNATE: Thousands of islanders are set to be evacuated after a volcano erupted in eastern Indonesia, spewing a towering column of smoke and ash into the atmosphere, officials said Wednesday.
Mount Ibu, located on the remote island of Halmahera, erupted for a fifth time this year on Wednesday, sending a column of smoke four kilometres (2.5 miles) into the sky.
The volcano's alert status was subsequently raised to the highest level by Indonesia's Geological Agency.
"Following the increase in Mount Ibu's (alert) level, today we will evacuate residents in five villages," said local disaster management head Wawan Gunawan Ali.
He added that local authorities were planning to evacuate approximately 3,000 residents from nearby villages on Wednesday evening.
Many residents had already gathered in a village hall, ready for evacuation, an AFP reporter on the ground reported.
Mount Ibu has shown a significant increase in volcanic activity since last June, following a series of earthquakes.
In the first weeks of January alone, the volcano, which is one of Indonesia's most active, erupted four times.
Residents living near Mount Ibu and tourists have been advised to avoid a five to six kilometre exclusion zone around the volcano's peak and to wear face masks in case of falling ash.
As of 2022, around 700,000 people were living on Halmahera island, according to official data.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity as it lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Last November, Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703-metre (5,587-foot) twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores erupted more than a dozen times in one week, killing nine people in its initial explosion.
Mount Ruang in North Sulawesi province erupted more than half a dozen times last year, forcing thousands from nearby islands to evacuate.
German minister says ‘historic opportunity’ to support new Syria
- Schulze announced that Berlin was expanding an international hospital partnerships program to include facilities in Syria
Damascus: Germany’s Development Minister Svenja Schulze promised to support Syria’s “peaceful and stable development” as she visited Damascus on Wednesday to meet with the interim authorities.
“After over 50 years of dictatorship and 14 years of civil war, Syria now has the chance of peaceful and stable development,” Schulze said in a statement.
Her visit comes a little over a month after Islamist-led forces toppled longtime president Bashar Assad.
Schulze is due to meet with the new leadership as well as aid organizations “to identify how Germany can support the development of a peaceful, stable and inclusive Syria,” the minister’s statement said.
“It would be wrong of us not to use this historic window of opportunity to support Syria in embarking on a peaceful new beginning,” she said.
“Germany can do a lot to support the new beginning for... Syrian society.”
Germany is home to Europe’s largest Syrian diaspora community, having taken in nearly a million people from the war-ravaged country.
A German study last month said that if they returned home, Germany could face labor shortages, particularly in the health care industry.
Schulze announced that Berlin was expanding an international hospital partnerships program to include facilities in Syria.
The expansion is part of reconstruction efforts but also aims at retaining “vital” medical professionals in Germany, according to the statement.
Schulze said that while “Syria’s new rulers are keen to regain the skilled workers and professionals who fled the country” during the civil war since 2011, “Germany also has an interest in retaining them.”
Under the expanded program, “doctors from Germany can visit Syria to conduct medical training courses or to train their Syrian colleagues in using new equipment,” the minister said.
“And Syrian doctors can come to Germany for training on both medical and organizational issues.”
Syria has seen a flurry of diplomatic activity since Assad’s fall on December 8, with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also traveling to Damascus earlier this month.
Mozambique inaugurates new president amid deadly unrest
MAPUTO: Mozambique kicked off an inauguration ceremony Wednesday where President-elect Daniel Chapo will be sworn into office after weeks of deadly political unrest, but the main opposition leader has vowed to “paralyze” the country with fresh protests against the fiercely disputed election result.
Venancio Mondlane had already called for a national strike in the days leading up to the inauguration and threatened on Tuesday to curtail the new government with daily demonstrations.
Mondlane, 50, who is popular with the youth, maintains the October 9 polls were rigged in favor of Chapo’s Frelimo party, which has governed the gas-rich African country since independence from Portugal in 1975.
“This regime does not want peace,” Mondlane said in an address on Facebook Tuesday, adding that his communications team was met with bullets on the streets this week.
“We’ll protest every single day. If it means paralysing the country for the entire term, we will paralyze it for the entire term.”
Chapo, 48, called for stability on Monday, telling journalists at the national assembly “we can continue to work and together, united... to develop our country.”
International observers have said the election was marred by irregularities, while the EU mission condemned what it called the “unjustified alteration of election results.”
The swearing in ceremony was expected to be snubbed by foreign heads of state, a move “which sends a strong message,” Maputo-based political and security risk analyst Johann Smith told AFP.
Former colonial ruler Portugal is sending Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel.
“Even from a regional point of view there is a hesitancy to acknowledge or recognize that Chapo won the election,” Smith said.
However, neighboring South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa was at the ceremony.
Amid tensions, security forces blocked roads throughout the capital Maputo and around Independence Square, where the swearing-in is being held.
The extent of the unrest from now on “depends on how Chapo will tackle the crisis,” analyst Borges Nhamirre told AFP.
The inauguration of parliamentary lawmakers Monday was held amid relative calm.
The streets were deserted, with most shops closed either in protest against the ceremony or out of fear of violence, while military police surrounded the parliament building and police blocked main roads.
Still, at least six people were killed in the Inhambane and Zambezia regions north of the capital, according to local civil society group Plataforma Decide.
Unrest since the election has claimed 300 lives, according to the group’s tally, with security forces accused of using excessive force against demonstrators. Police officers have also died, according to the authorities.
Chapo, who is expected to announce his new government this week, could make concessions by appointing opposition members to ministerial posts to quell the unrest, said Eric Morier-Genoud, an African history professor at Queen’s University Belfast.
There have also been calls for dialogue but Mondlane has been excluded from talks that Chapo and outgoing President Filipe Nyusi have opened with the leaders of the main political parties.
Chapo has repeatedly said however that he would include Mondlane in talks.
Mondlane, who returned to Mozambique last week after going into hiding abroad following the October 19 assassination of his lawyer, has said he was ready for talks.
“I’m here in the flesh to say that if you want to negotiate... I’m here,” he said.
According to official results, Chapo won 65 percent of the presidential vote, compared to 24 percent for Mondlane.
But the opposition leader claims that he won 53 percent and that Mozambique’s election institutions manipulated the results.
Frelimo parliamentarians also dominate the 250-seat national assembly with 171 seats compared to the Podemos party’s 43.
Russia fires over 40 missiles at Ukraine’s energy sector: Zelensky
KYIV: Russia launched more than 40 missiles and over 70 attack drones in an overnight barrage that targeted Ukraine’s energy sector, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday.
“More than 40 missiles were involved in this strike, including ballistic missiles. At least 30 were destroyed. There were also more than 70 Russian attack drones overnight,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
Preventive power cuts introduced in Ukraine following a massive Russian missile attack
- Ukraine’s air force detected multiple missile groups launched by Russia during a nationwide air-raid alert
KYIV: Russia launched a massive aerial attack against Ukraine on Wednesday, forcing the country to introduce preventive power cuts, the Ukrainian energy minister said.
“The enemy continues to terrorize Ukrainians,” Herman Halushchenko wrote on Facebook, urging residents to stay in shelters during the ongoing threat and follow official updates.
The state energy company Ukrenergo reported emergency power outages in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kirovohrad regions.
Russian forces launched missile strikes targeting energy infrastructure in the western Lviv region early Wednesday, said the city’s mayor, Andrii Sadovyi.
“During the morning attack, enemy cruise missiles were recorded in the region,” he said.
No casualties or damage were reported.
Ukraine’s air force detected multiple missile groups launched by Russia during a nationwide air-raid alert, though initial reports indicated no damage.
Wednesday’s attack has further exacerbated the strain on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which has been a frequent target during the nearly three-year-old war.
