China, Russia to mark 70th anniversary of the end of second world war in show of unity

China and Russia will consolidate their united front with a series of high level exchanges in coming months, with a particular emphasis on joint commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war.

Diplomats from both nations outlined their plans for the commemorations yesterday, but stressed they were not targeting Japan in an apparent attempt to avoid provoking the volatile Sino-Japanese relationship.

The highlights of the commemorations will be a military parade in Moscow in May, which will be attended by President Xi Jinping , and a military parade in Beijing in September, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited.

"Both Russia and China hold responsible positions and are efficient at coordination in the most complicated world issues, and that has made our cooperation an important part of international relations," the Russian ambassador to China, Andrey Ivanovich Denisov, said.

Chinese and Russian students and archaeologists will in May embark on a month-long project - the first of its kind - to locate the remains of 388 Soviet army soldiers who died fighting the Japanese near the Sino-Russian border 70 years ago.

China would continue to promote visits by mainland tourists to Moscow and Ulyanovsk, the hometown of late Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, Deputy Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping said.

Li Lifan , a Russian affairs expert at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the war commemorations provided a platform for the two nations to display their mutual trust and offset the influence of the US.

"Washington has been excluding China and Russia [from the new world order]," Li said. "Jointly commemorating the end of the second world war could demonstrate the multi-polar order advocated by Beijing ... and serve to counterbalance the West."

Other foreign leaders will be invited to join the parade in Beijing, but Cheng declined to give further details. He stressed that China and Russia were not acting against Japan. "It has no direct correlation with the current Sino-Japanese relations," he said.

Observers said Cheng's remarks highlighted concerns that the commemorations would be heavy with anti-Japanese sentiment, providing other nations with the dilemma of choosing between Beijing and Tokyo.

In addition to grievances over wartime history, China and Japan are engaged in a territorial dispute in the East China Sea.

Liang Yunxiang , a professor of Japanese studies at Peking University, said China was aware other nations might be hesitant to attend the commemorations. "It is more likely that China will invite only those countries that have historical disputes with Japan, for example, Russia and South Korea," he said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will attend the Moscow parade, his first foreign trip after taking power, but Cheng said whether Xi and Kim would meet depended on "circumstances".

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will visit China at the end of this year, while Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Moscow in April.

The two nations also vowed to step up energy cooperation, on top of the "East Route" deal in which Russia will export 38 billion cubic metres of gas to China annually over 30 years from 2018.