China and Russia agree to continue alliance building in defence of multilateralism

China and Russia ended their three-day heads of government meeting in Moscow on Wednesday with a pledge to stand together against “unilateralism and protectionism”.

Their joint statement made veiled references to Washington’s trade policy, saying that increasing political uncertainty was making a slowdown in the global economy worse.

“The two sides believe that the current multilateral trading system is facing challenges, trade protectionism is rising and unilateral measures that violate the rules of the World Trade Organisation are becoming more frequent,” said the statement issued by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, as their talks ended.

At a meeting on Wednesday with Vladimir Putin, Li told the Russian president that China and Russia had taken strides in their relations since Monday, relations that were “upgraded” at a landmark meeting in June between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Li told Putin that China would continue to work with Russia to uphold multilateral global governance and trade systems, with the United Nations and World Trade Organisation at their heart.

Putin called Russia-China cooperation “a most important factor in global affairs”, and said that he looked forward to meeting Xi in South America in November, referring to the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] summit scheduled for November 13 and 14 in Brazil, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Chile on November 17 and 18.