March 22, 2023: China and Russia are taking centre stage this week as dual countries look to deepen connections just as a chasm in the West, on a geopolitical, economic, and military front, as it appears to be getting deeper, analysts state.

On Monday, a three-day state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow this week, beginning, was hailed by China and the presidents of Russia as the outcome of the solid and cooperative connections between the two leaders and their nations and came after a determined drive regarding the last decade to strengthen diplomatic, defence and trade ties.

Ahead of the visit, President Vladimir Putin stated in an article that “unlike some places claiming hegemony and which brings discord to the international harmony, Russia and China are figuratively building bridges”. At the same time, his Chinese counterpart returned the favour, telling AFP he is “confident the visit will be fruitful and give recent momentum to the healthy and stable growth of Chinese-Russian relations.”

Xi’s visit to Moscow is a political coup for Russia, which gives that it comes at a time when Russia has high-powered friends left on the international stage to show for its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian forces are making little tangible progress despite a year of fighting, and a primarily isolated Moscow continues to labour under the weight of international. To add to the jury’s insult, the International Criminal Court gave an arrest warrant for Putin, alleging that he was responsible for war crimes in Ukraine during the war.

Nonetheless, China and Russia have long shared familiar geopolitical aims, like a desire to see a “multi-polar world” and the surging of NATO’s military might that unite them. And perhaps the most hugely shared viewpoint is their mutual, long-standing suspicion of the West.

A confluence of recent programs from the war in Ukraine to Western restrictions on semiconductor technology exports to China and a nuclear submarine deal amid the U.S., U.K. and Australia that irked Beijing has brought the firms even closer together, the analysts stated.

“If you witness the trajectory of China-Russia relations within the previous decade, bilateral ties amid the two countries have developed tremendously,” Alicja Bachulska, the European Council on Foreign Relations policy, said that the process of increasing ties had begun back in the 1990s.

“It’s basically about certain ideas and interests closer to Beijing and Moscow at this point,” she stated.

“For Russia and China, the main interest is weakening the U.S.-led international order; that’s their primary goal, long and short term.”