Li’s four-day visit to Russia, which wrapped up on Wednesday, was his first abroad since he was appointed defence minister in March. He told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday that China was willing to strengthen communication and coordination between the Chinese and Russian militaries.
It comes after Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to hold regular joint naval and air drills when they met in Moscow last month.
The defence chiefs said China-Russia ties were crucial to peace and stability. Photo: AFP/Russian defence ministry
Western governments are closely watching relations between China and Russia, especially after Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February last year. The neighbouring countries have boosted their economic and military ties since the invasion, but Beijing has said it would remain neutral in the conflict. Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Friday said China would not sell arms to any party to the Ukraine war.
On Tuesday, Li told Shoigu that his Moscow trip was “to demonstrate to the outside world the high level of China-Russia relations and to show the determination to strengthen strategic cooperation between the two militaries”, according to footage of the meeting released by the Russian defence ministry.
Shoigu said: “I am convinced that your extensive experience of interaction with the Russian Federation will contribute both to the development of the People’s Republic of China armed forces and to the expansion of military cooperation between our countries.”
The defence chiefs said the China-Russia relationship was crucial to regional and global peace and stability. “It is important that our countries see eye to eye on the issue of the ongoing transformation of the global geopolitical landscape,” Shoigu said.
A Chinese defence ministry statement said Li and Shoigu had agreed that the two militaries should coordinate with each other and achieve “fruitful results” in areas that were not specified.
Military cooperation between Russia and China has worried the West. The United States has sanctioned Chinese companies for providing non-lethal support for Russian troops and groups supporting them. On April 12, Washington imposed sanctions on a Chinese firm that provided satellite imagery of Ukraine to the Wagner Group, a paramilitary organisation founded by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.
But Nato and the US said they had seen no signs yet that Beijing had supplied arms to Moscow.
The Russian and Chinese delegations signed an agreement on Tuesday for cooperation between Russia’s Military Academy of the General Staff and the People’s Liberation Army Academy of National Defence, the Russian defence ministry said, without giving details of the memorandum of understanding.
General Li Shangfu, who became China’s defence minister in March, was sanctioned by the US in 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE
Li toured the Russian staff college on Monday, when he said many of its graduates held senior positions in the Chinese military.
The academy has been training Chinese officers since the 1990s.
Russia’s defence ministry said more than 20 Chinese senior officers would begin studying in autumn at the Russian academy, and it would consider increasing the number of Chinese officers to be enrolled at the staff college.
Li drove the modernisation of China’s military as the Central Military Commission’s head of equipment and the crewed space programme. The US placed sanctions on him in 2018, accusing him – then director of the Equipment Development Department – of transferring Su-35 fighter jets and equipment related to the S-400 surface-to-air missile system from Russia to China.
