Opinion | China and Russia show united front amid a hail of US-led sanctions

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent two-day meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi was announced on the same day that the Alaska talks between China and the United States kicked off. Despite speculation over the timing, Beijing has denied that Lavrov’s visit was aimed at third parties or connected to the US talks.

This was the first meeting between Lavrov and Wang since last September, when they met on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Moscow and stressed Russia and China’s effective response to attacks from “extremist forces” in the US.

US President Joe Biden has been realising his promise to unite “like-minded” allies against Russia and China. At the Nato meeting last month to discuss the transatlantic security alliance’s 2030 vision, Moscow and Beijing were seen as leading “an authoritarian pushback against rules-based international order”. This came after the US called China the “greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide” last December.

Earlier this month, Biden’s administration went on the offensive with the Interim National Security Strategic Guideline, prioritising “rivalry with China, Russia and other authoritarian states”.