Friendship With No Limits: Breakdown of Putin's Visit to China
Friendship With No Limits: Breakdown of Putin's Visit to China
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Vladimir Putin met with Xi Jinping in China on May 17, where both leaders reaffirmed their long-lasting friendship and progressive relations between the two countries. AfroVerdict joins two international relations experts to dissect the statements made by the heads of state and why the West is not always happy with this friendship.
"Friendship with no limits" - the expression used by Xi Jin Ping to describe the relations between China and Russia is "a powerful one", according to Mr. Koffi Koakou, Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Africa-China Studies, University of Johannesburg.
"Both leaders are there for the long haul, which means this is a bond that's going to be there for a long time. The concern about the collective West is that they now start to see two rising powers that represent a challenge to their [Western] hegemonic postures across the world for many centuries, and that's what really concerns them [...] But the West largely seems to be having a posture of aggression all the time. They seem to understand more violence, more destruction and more chaos in the world than seeing China and Russia doing well for peace and stability in the world," Mr. Koakou notes.
China and Russia make the West "worried when it comes to balance of power", according to Dr. Isaac Nunoo
"It's almost like the two nations are inseparable. You have this kind of geopolitical or ideological umbilical cord that binds them [...] It's a mystery that they [the Western world] struggle to see how best they could actually separate or even deal with that situation. The West should be worried, actually, because it doesn't help them achieve their geopolitical interests," Dr. Nunoo says.
To hear what else the experts had to say, check out the entire episode of the AfroVerdict podcast, brought to you by Sputnik Africa.
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