Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has kicked off a two-day visit to China, as Moscow seeks to deepen trade ties with Beijing amid growing international isolation over its war in Ukraine.
At a Russia-China business forum in Shanghai on Tuesday, Mishustin said his nation’s farmers were ready to significantly increase agricultural exports to China, Russian news agency Interfax reported.
The Russian politician, who has been sanctioned by the US, Australia, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand and the UK, added that China trade had helped Russia decrease its “dependence on the dollar.” That effort had also been bolstered by increased trade in the two nations’ national currencies, he said.
Mishustin’s inaugural visit to China as prime minister comes as President Xi Jinping has dispatched a special envoy to Ukraine and several European countries. The simultaneous trips symbolize how Beijing is balancing maintaining ties with Moscow, while also trying to portray Xi as a global peacemaker with unique ties to leaders on both sides of Russia’s war.
Read more: Russian Premier, Sanctioned Tycoons to Visit China Forum
Mishustin is expected to meet with Xi and Premier Li Qiang in Beijing on Wednesday, to discuss cooperation in energy, transport infrastructure and agriculture, according to the Russian government. He will also meet former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who now heads the New Development Bank in Shanghai.
The Russian leader was set to be joined on the trip by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who is responsible for energy, Bloomberg earlier reported. Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said last week he was planning to attend, to discuss issues such as winter wheat and meat shipments to China, he told an agriculture conference aired by RBC TV on Friday.
A number of tycoons sanctioned by the US and its allies had also been invited, but it was unclear if they would attend. The Chinese foreign ministry and commerce ministry didn’t respond to questions about the event.
China has refrained from joining the US-led sanctions campaign against Russia for triggering Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, and since then bilateral trade has boomed. China’s exports to Russia hit a record in April, jumping 153% from a year earlier to $9.6 billion.
While China has been buying a lot of commodities from Russia, imports of wheat have been hampered by a slew of issues, including transport challenges. At the Tuesday forum, Mishustin said the two countries need to strengthen food security, adding that Russian farmers can expand the range of goods supplied.
Beijing’s top security official Chen Wenqing, who also sits on the Communist Party’s 24-member Politburo, is also visiting Russia from May 21 to 28 to attend meetings on law-enforcement and security, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Saturday.
(Updates with Mishustin’s remarks in the 2nd paragraph.)
