Xi Jinping to Meet Putin; US Expert Says Taiwan is a Potential Issue

(CNA, Taipei, 18th) Just after the "Trump-Xi meeting" concluded, Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China from the 19th to the 20th and will hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. An American expert analyzed that the Taiwan issue could be a potential topic for the "Xi-Putin meeting," and that China will seek Russia's expansion of its oil pipeline transport capacity to significantly enhance China's oil supply security in a Taiwan Strait contingency.

The Guardian reported on the 18th that just as US President Donald Trump left China, Xi Jinping is about to welcome Vladimir Putin. The Global Times, a peripheral official media outlet of the CCP, published an article on this, claiming that the successive visits of US and Russian leaders to China indicate that Beijing is "rapidly becoming the focus of global diplomacy," and that in the post-Cold War era, it is extremely rare for a country to host both US and Russian leaders in the same week.

The report points out that Xi Jinping and Putin have met more than 40 times to date, far exceeding the number of meetings he has had with any Western leader. However, the increasingly close relationship between China and Russia has always been a concern for the West, especially after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Westerners further believe that China's subsequent economic and diplomatic support for Russia has fueled the continuation of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Since 2022, Sino-Russian bilateral trade has soared to a record high, with China purchasing more than a quarter of Russia's exports, including a large amount of crude oil, providing hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine. Data shows that since the outbreak of the war, China has purchased over $367 billion (about NT$11.6 trillion) in fossil fuels from Russia.

The report indicates that the Ukraine issue was not the focus of the "Trump-Xi meeting"; the two focused their talks on issues such as Taiwan, trade, and the Middle East, with Xi Jinping pressuring Trump on the Taiwan issue. China has been trying to control Taiwan, an island not under its control, but most Taiwanese people oppose this.

Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, said in a news briefing that the Taiwan issue could be a potential topic of the meeting between Xi Jinping and Putin.

Webster believes that China may be seeking to sign more fossil fuel deals with Russia to ensure an adequate energy supply in the event of a future conflict (in the Taiwan Strait). An expansion of Russia's oil pipeline transport capacity to China would significantly enhance China's oil supply security in a Taiwan Strait contingency.

Russia has been urging China to jointly promote the construction of the "Power of Siberia 2" natural gas pipeline, which would allow Russia to increase its natural gas delivery capacity to China by 50 billion cubic meters per year. (Editor: Chiu Kuo-chiang / Chen Kai-yu) 1150518