Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed “serious concerns” about the AUKUS security pact and NATO, according to a joint statement released by China’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday following talks between the two leaders in Moscow.
The joint statement said China and Russia urged AUKUS members Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States to “strictly fulfill their obligations not to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.”
The multi-decade AUKUS deal aims to counter China’s rapid military expansion. Under the plan, the partners will build a combined fleet of elite nuclear-powered submarines using technology, labor and funding from all three countries, creating a more formidable force in the Indo-Pacific than any of them could achieve alone.
In the joint statement, Xi and Putin also said their partnership is in the “fundamental interests” of both countries, adding that “Russia needs a prosperous and stable China, and China needs a strong and successful Russia.”
Leaders on NATO: Xi and Putin also expressed serious concerns about NATO’s “continuous strengthening of military-security ties with Asia-Pacific countries” and said they “oppose external military forces undermining regional peace and stability.”
A year after Russia invaded Ukraine, Xi’s backing of Putin has opened the door for the US and partners in the Pacific to shore up sometimes frayed relationships to the detriment of Beijing.
In the past few months alone, Japan has pledged to double defense spending and acquire long-range weapons from the US; South Korea has acknowledged that stability in the Taiwan Strait is essential to its security; the Philippines has announced new US base access rights and is talking about joint patrols of the South China Sea with Australia, Japan and the United States.
