China looks for firmer legal ground for economic ties with Russia

Beijing is growing impatient with the lack of progress on integration between the two economies, particularly on the Belt and Road Initiative, analyst says

Some form of institutional framework needed to ‘see an impact’

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Military cooperation has been the focus of relations between China and Russia. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 6:00pm, 27 Nov 2021

The head of China’s legislature has called for closer ties with Russia’s lawmaking bodies to lay a legal foundation for greater economic integration and political security, as the two countries confront the United States and its allies.

Diplomatic observers said the call was a signal that Moscow and Beijing wanted to expand their quasi alliance beyond defence and trade.

Li Zhanshu, head of the National People’s Congress and a member of the seven-strong Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee, said China and Russia should support each other’s core interests with legislation.

“[We] must continue to focus on safeguarding the two countries’ political safety,” Li said in a virtual meeting on Tuesday with Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko, chairwoman of Russia’s Federation Council, and Ivan Melnikov, deputy chairman of the State Duma.

Li, the third most powerful man in the party and a long-time protégé of President Xi Jinping, also called on his Russian counterparts to step up legislative exchanges of views in disease control to fight “politicised searches for the origin of the coronavirus”.

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