Beijing, 3 Mar (Xinhua) -- Heading the way for Sino-Russian relations and injecting more stability into the world -- written on the occasion of President Xi Jinping's upcoming state visit to Russia

Xinhua News Agency reporter

With the Ural Mountains standing majestically and the Volga River winding forward, the vast Russian land will once again welcome distinguished Chinese guests. At the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Russia from March 3 to 20.

This is President Xi Jinping's first foreign visit since his continued election as President of the People's Republic of China, and is a journey of friendship, cooperation and peace, which will lead the course and draw a blueprint for the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination between China and Russia in the new era, promote the two sides to continue to deepen comprehensive strategic coordination and practical cooperation in various fields, and inject strong impetus into safeguarding peace, security, development and prosperity, and jointly building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Set an example of relations between major countries

Climbing high and low in the ice and snow, dragging large buckets filled with water, holding fresh bamboo and feasting... At the beginning of March this year, the Chinese giant panda "Ruyi", living in the Moscow Zoo in Russia, became popular all over the Internet. Chinese netizens commented: "Russia has treated Chinese national treasures with the highest courtesy."

In June 2019, during President Xi Jinping's visit to Russia, he and President Putin witnessed the giant pandas "Ruyi" and "Tintin" settled in Moscow, adding a warm and bright background to the friendship between the two countries.

During that visit, the leaders of the two countries jointly signed and issued a joint statement, announcing the development of a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination between China and Russia in the new era, the upgrading of bilateral relations, and the official opening of a new era of higher level and greater development of China-Russia relations.

After visiting Russia again after more than three years, President Xi Jinping will have an in-depth exchange of views with President Putin on bilateral relations and major international and regional issues of common concern, promote strategic coordination and pragmatic cooperation between the two countries, and inject new impetus into the development of bilateral relations. The visit is President Xi Jinping's ninth visit to Russian soil since he became president. In the past ten years, the top leaders of China and Russia have met 40 times, and the political exchanges between the two heads of state have always maintained a high level, high frequency and high quality.

Head-of-state exchanges are the compass and fixed star of Sino-Russian relations. Every great stride forward in the relations between the two countries is inseparable from the strategic guidance and personal drawing of the Chinese and Russian heads of state - in 2013, the two heads of state signed the "China-Russia Joint Statement on Win-win Cooperation and Deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination", in 2014 signed the "China-Russia Joint Statement on the New Stage of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination", in 2015 signed the "China-Russia Joint Statement on Deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination and Advocating Win-win Cooperation", and in 2017 signed the " The Sino-Russian Joint Statement on Further Deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination, the signing of the Sino-Russian Joint Statement on Developing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination in the New Era in 2019, the 2021th anniversary of the signing of the China-Russia Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation in 20, the two heads of state officially announced the extension of the treaty and gave it a new connotation of the era...

In the face of the century-old changes and the epidemic of the century, President Xi Jinping and President Putin have maintained close communication in various ways. From the "Winter Olympics Covenant" and "New Year Meeting" to the traditional year-end video meeting, from telephone communication to the exchange of letters, from "cloud witness" to the groundbreaking ceremony of China-Russia nuclear energy cooperation project to "cloud attendance" of important diplomatic activities at the home of each other... Under the joint leadership of the two heads of state, the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination in the new era has become more mature and tenacious, and the endogenous driving force of cooperation between the two countries has been further revealed.

"Deliver the same way, be the same for thousands of miles". China and Russia have successfully embarked on a path of strategic mutual trust and friendly neighborly coexistence among major countries, setting a model for a new type of international relations. In the face of the profoundly evolving international situation, China and Russia have always maintained strategic determination, adhered to the general direction of building a multipolar world, and advocated and practiced true multilateralism. China-Russia relations are based on non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-targeting of any third party, and neither pose a threat to any country in the world, nor are they subject to interference or provocation by any third party. Vasily Kashin, director of the Center for Integrated Studies in Europe and International Studies at the Higher University of Economics, said that Russia and China have created a model of great power intersection, and "efficient, responsible, responsible and future-oriented relations between major countries play an important stabilizing role in the international situation."

Write a new chapter of friendship and cooperation

China's northeastern border city of Heihe and Russia's Blagoveshchensk across the Heilongjiang River, known as the "Sino-Russian Twin Cities". On June 6 last year, the Heihe-Blagoveshchensk Highway Bridge, the first Sino-Russian highway bridge across the Heilongjiang River, was officially opened to traffic.

A flying bridge to China and Russia. The bridge is a major cross-border infrastructure project promoted by the two heads of state, and its opening opens up a new international transport corridor between Northeast China and the Russian Far East, becoming a symbol of the construction of cross-border connectivity between China and Russia.

From the connection of transportation infrastructure to the implementation of the roadmap for the high-quality development of China-Russia trade in goods and services, from steadily advancing major oil and gas cooperation projects to strengthening cooperation in science and technology innovation, the fields of practical cooperation between China and Russia have been continuously expanded, and the quantity and quality have increased.

Over the past decade, trade between China and Russia has drawn a strong growth curve: from less than $2013 billion in 900 to more than $2022 billion in 1900, and is now accelerating toward the $2000 billion target set by the two presidents.

In recent years, China's exports of automobiles and spare parts to Russia have increased significantly, and the sales of Chinese automobile brands in Russia have continued to rise. By the end of last year, the number of Chinese brand car dealers in Russia had reached 1041,<>.

Russian goods are also loved by Chinese consumers, and chocolate, honey, flour and wine from Russia are packed into the vegetable baskets and snack boxes of the Chinese people. The Russian Export Center recently announced that it will increase the number of Russian online stores in the online market to facilitate Chinese consumers to buy high-quality Russian goods.

While the all-round pragmatic cooperation between China and Russia continues to deepen, people-to-people exchanges between the two countries have become increasingly close, and the foundation of public opinion in the friendly society between China and Russia has become more solid. The two heads of state personally promoted and continued the friendly tradition of holding each other's national theme years, and designated 2022 and 2023 as "sports exchange years" after the "Youth Friendly Exchange Year", "Media Exchange Year", "Local Cooperation and Exchange Year" and "Science and Technology Innovation Year". Within this framework, a series of activities such as the second Moscow "Confucius Cup" Chinese Sports and Culture and Art Project Competition, the China-Russia Sports Carnival, and the <>rd China-Russia Winter Youth Games were held one after another, and the people of the two countries felt the passion of sports and continued to write a new chapter in China-Russia friendship.

Professor Yuri Tavrovsky of RUDN University said that under the leadership of the two heads of state, Russia and China have actively cooperated in the past decade, and it is believed that the leaders of the two countries will open up more new areas of bilateral cooperation in the future.

Make a strong voice of fairness and justice

President Xi Jinping came to Russia on his first foreign trip since taking office in 2013. In his speech at the Moscow Institute of International Relations, President Xi Jinping proposed for the first time to promote "the establishment of a new type of international relations with win-win cooperation as the core" and called on the international community to establish a sense of community of common destiny of "you have me and I have you".

Over the past decade, the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind has been written into important documents of multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization many times, reflecting the common aspirations of the people of all countries, condensing the broad consensus of the international community, and becoming a clear banner leading the trend of the times and the direction of human progress. Anatoly Tolkunov, president of the Moscow Institute of International Relations, who listened to President Xi Jinping's speech in 2013, said that the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind has become more and more prominent in the past ten years.

Today, the world is once again at a crossroads in history. Whether to return to the Cold War mentality and provoke division and confrontation and bloc confrontation, or to proceed from the common well-being of mankind and practice equality, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, these two orientations test the wisdom of the politicians of major countries and the rationality of all mankind. Facts have repeatedly proved that containment and suppression are unpopular, and sanctions and interference are doomed to failure.

At a critical juncture in human history, President Xi Jinping made a major judgment that "the world is experiencing great changes unprecedented in a century", and President Putin pointed out at the Valdai Forum that "mankind is in an era of great change".

The more turbulent the world is, the more Sino-Russian relations should move forward steadily. As founding members of the SCO, China and Russia have continuously promoted multilateral cooperation by giving full play to their respective advantages in concept leadership and strategic planning, and gradually expanded the fields covered by the organization from initial security to political, economic and cultural fields, becoming indispensable and constructive forces for improving the international order, promoting global and regional development, and maintaining the security and stability of member states.

China, Russia and other emerging market countries joined hands to establish the BRICS mechanism. Under the framework of this mechanism, China and Russia and other countries have actively promoted the reform process of global economic governance and spoken out jointly on a series of major international and regional issues, which has effectively enhanced the representation and voice of emerging market countries and developing countries in global affairs. Today, with the rise of anti-globalization ideas such as populism and trade protectionism, developing countries represented by the BRICS countries have become the new "engine" of economic globalization.

As permanent members of the UN Security Council and important members of global and regional organizations such as the G20 and APEC, China and Russia play a leading role as major countries, adding impetus to the multipolarization of the world and the democratization of international relations, and providing guarantees for global strategic balance and stability. On global and regional affairs such as the Korean Peninsula, the situation in Afghanistan and the Iranian nuclear issue, China and Russia share the same position and cooperate closely.

For now, the Ukraine crisis remains the focus of global attention. More than a year after the escalation of the crisis, China has adhered to an objective and impartial position, actively promoted peace talks, promoted the formation of a joint force in the international community, and played a constructive role in the peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. In February this year, China issued the document "China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis", which proposed a comprehensive, comprehensive and feasible plan for resolving the crisis, which was widely recognized by the international community, including the parties concerned. In the same month, China released the Global Security Initiative Concept Paper, which provides more systematic ideas and feasible measures to solve global security problems.

Ten years together, never quit. China will continue to work with Russia to conform to the trend of the times, hedge against division with unity, replace confrontation with cooperation, and make new and greater contributions to the progressive cause of peace and development of mankind. (Reporter Han Mo, Zhao Yan, Zhu Ruiqing, Zhang Yuan)