(Reuters) -Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on Monday departed for a two-day visit to China, with planned talks with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang expected to centre on economic and technological cooperation despite pressure from the West.
Mishustin is scheduled for a regular heads-of-government meeting with Li in the city of Hangzhou on Monday, and will travel to Beijing on Tuesday for talks with Xi, TASS agency reported, citing the Russian government’s press service.
The last heads-of-government meeting between China and Russia took place in Moscow in August 2024, where Li praised the “new vigor” and “vitality” in bilateral ties.
The Kremlin attached “very great” importance to Mishustin’s visit to China, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, while declining to say whether President Vladimir Putin would send a message to Xi via the Russian prime minister, Interfax agency reported.
Putin and Xi signed a “no limits” partnership in February 2022, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since then, Moscow has turned to Beijing to mitigate the impact of Western sanctions, highlighting record bilateral trade, increased settlements in yuan and deepening energy cooperation.
U.S.–China friction over trade and technology under U.S. President Donald Trump, which strained relations between Washington and Beijing, has also encouraged both Moscow and Beijing to strengthen cross-border commerce to counter Western pressure.
However, China-Russia trade has been declining in recent months, which the Russian Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov attributed to “external” economic pressure and “market saturation” of Chinese products in Russia.
China’s September yuan-denominated exports to Russia posted their biggest drop in seven months – down a staggering 21% year-on-year – according to Chinese customs data.
But China’s imports from Russia swung back to growth in September with a 3.8% rise compared with a 17.8% contraction a month earlier.
Mishustin’s talks in China were expected to focus on trade and economic ties, transport and industrial cooperation, enhanced energy partnerships and expanded collaboration in advanced technology and agriculture, TASS reported.
Moscow views industrial and technological cooperation with Beijing as a more sustainable format for long-term cooperation, being less dependent on market conditions, according to Russian state media.
On Sunday, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng chaired a commission meeting in Ningbo that flagged growth in copper and nickel exports and wider farm-goods access, the Russian government said on its Telegram channel.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Ryan Woo in Beijing; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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