Vladimir Putin came to Beijing for a short visit and had personal talks with his Chinese friend for the first time since the Si pandemic. . As a result of this meeting, the two leaders issued a joint statement, which for good reason can be called a “Chinese letter.” For those who have forgotten the exact meaning of this Russian phraseological unit, I recall. “Chinese literacy” is a set of words whose meaning is absolutely unavailable to an ignorant person. Photo: kremlin.ru global sustainable development ”every word and every paragraph is understandable. But the main thing that escapes understanding is the general meaning of all that political beauty. Should the joint statement of the two leaders be seen as a call for “all good and against all bad? Or is there something hidden between the pompous but deep inner contents lacking ritual phrases that is really important in the context of the current unprecedented sharpening of relations between the Russian Federation and the West? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. However, this center still seems to be skewed towards the first option. In the Russian version, the joint statement consists of 36,996 characters. This is almost one and a half newspaper strips of small text. But most of this little text deserves a cursory reading. A typical example: “The parties call on all states calling for the common good to strengthen dialogue and mutual trust, deepen mutual understanding, promote universal values such as peace, development, equality, justice, democracy and freedom, respect the rights of nations independently. choose the path of development of their countries, as well as the sovereignty and interests of states in the field of security and development. “ I don't know about you, but I haven't had enough calls to protect the rights of cats, but also of camels, which are undoubtedly oppressed by some camel drivers. What is the reason for such irony? Suspected that the scope of the document is intended to obscure the absence of something truly new and significant in it. Of course, it cannot be said that the statements of both leaders consisted only of clichés and generalities. We read, for example: “Some minority forces on the world stage continue to pursue unilateral approaches to solving international problems and resort to power politics, practicing interference in the internal affairs of other states, and damaging their legitimate rights and interests. , causing contradictions, disagreements and confrontations, hinders the development and progress of humanity. “ It is clear that” by some means “is meant the United States. But is America really a “minority” on the international stage now? And does this passage have any applied political significance? Another puzzle: “The parties confirm that a new type of Russian-Chinese interstate relations is better than military-political alliances from the Cold War. The friendship between the two countries has no borders, there are no forbidden zones of cooperation, the strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation is not directed against third countries, it is not affected by the changing international environment and situational changes in third countries. Beautiful, eloquent – and extremely incomprehensible. What is behind the wording of “new type of interstate relations” in practice? What exactly are “superior to the Cold War military-political alliances”? And does the thesis of the immunity of a new “great friendship” in relation to “situational change in third countries” mean that Chinese banks will not be subject to US sanctions against Russia? I doubt it somehow. A handshake between Putin and Xi Jinping “canceled” the covid: gallery of meetings from different years View related photo gallery 
We continue to look for specifics: “The Chinese side is understanding and supporting the proposals put forward by the Russian Federation to establish long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe.” Golden words – or just gilded? From the point of view of international relations, the concept of “support” has many different degrees, from support “side view from a beach chair” to support in the form of your active participation in the fight. The wording used leads to the conclusion: China's support for Russia at this difficult time in its history is getting closer to “outside sympathies.”
Of course, there are issues where there is truly complete unity between the two countries. Moscow and Beijing are opposed to attempts to review the results of World War II. Great. “Russia and China as world powers with a rich cultural and historical heritage have a deep tradition of democracy” is less amazing or even mildly comical. I wonder who exactly set out these “deep traditions of democracy” – Stalin and Mao, Chinese emperors or representatives of our Romanov dynasty? But let's not argue. Suppose that in such a strange form, Putin and Xi Jinping expressed their protest against America's desire to plant their form of democracy everywhere.
“The parties support the course of internationalization of Internet administration, defend the same rights to its administration, consider unacceptable any attempts to limit their sovereign right to regulate and ensure the security of national segments of the Internet” – there are also questions about these passages. With American control of the Internet, social networks and so on and so forth, it's definitely time to end. But God forbid, we are on China's path in building a society of universal electronic supervision and universal electronic management. But that's right, thoughts out loud and remarks from the “brand on the edge” category. And now, from these remarks, it is time to return to the main one: in the battle with the collective West, Russia seems to be alone with this West.
Of course, you cannot base your conclusions solely on the document that is widely cited above. This documentation was clearly prepared and firmly agreed in advance. What really matters is what happened in the closed part of the meeting of both leaders. We don't know about that yet and we probably won't even know it in the foreseeable future. However, I will use this phrase again: it is unlikely that the spirit of what was discussed in Beijing behind closed doors would be very different from the spirit of the notorious “Joint Declaration”. Russia is undoubtedly a large, but no less undoubted, lone power today. We have someone nice to talk to, but there's not much to rely on. Such is the song “Moscow-Beijing” now.
Vladimir Putin and Si Jinping did not shake hands during the meeting: video
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