Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping issued a joint statement on international relations and co-operation between China and Russia at the very starting moment of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The joint statement came at the time of great tension around the world about NATO over Ukraine and Russians invasion also when Winter Games was to boycott diplomatically with a document of about 10 pages. They met face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time in 2 years in Beijing while issuing this statement that says both nations’ will share positions on a range of global issues.

The statement read, ‘The sides oppose further enlargement of Nato and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologies cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security, and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other states’.

In 1997 there was a similar hint was sent out but this time it’s happening as both the presidents have spoken out so clearly and have strengthened ties so closely for the first time during a worldwide sporting event.

Let’s know some of the highlights of the joint statement Putin and Xi did share with.

Democracy

The statement shows how the two leaders sketched out a shared vision of universal values that diverges from the Western worldview and viewing to establish democracy.

“It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their State is a democratic one,” they said in the statement, in a reference to repeated Western criticism of the lack of political freedoms in Russia and China.

NATO’s enlargement

The statement reads that China explicitly backs Russia to “oppose further enlargement of NATO,” referring to Ukraine’s efforts to join the alliance. Putin’s earlier demands for “long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe” are also supported by China as far the statement says. The statement criticized the U.S. military expansion in the Indo-Pacific and through AUKUS, a trilateral security agreement comprising Australia, Britain, and the United States.

Xi and Putin said such initiatives will “increase the danger of an arms race in the region.”

‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’

Chinese president Xi backed Putin on the statement in his immediate crisis facing off against NATO over Ukraine, which surely resembles China being cooperative with Russia. Likewise Russian is also backing China as the statement shows with many mentions. According to Russia, it supports China’s position as it relates to the search for the origins of the coronavirus, a sensitive topic for Beijing. Putin supports China’s opposition to “any forms of independence” for Taiwan, the self-ruled, democratic island claimed by China.

Such an alliance between China and Russia is an important counterweight to US supremacy. The whole collaboration of cooperation can be seen as an invention of a new world that aims to create a multipolar world, with respect for the sovereignty of countries.