Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held talks this week.
The reports in Russian media said they would address NATO “belligerent rhetoric and tense situation in Europe during the talks, which are going to take place on Wednesday via video linkup,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Tuesday, TASS said.
According to the Russian media, the two sides discussed “recent developments in international affairs, especially on the European continent, are now very tense and this definitely requires discussion between the allies, between Moscow and Beijing," the Kremlin spokesman noted.
This is important because it shows how close China and Russia have become and how they coordinate regarding the US and Europe. They sense an opportunity.
The US wants to shift to confronting Russia and China after two decades of “global war on terror.” But there is a question about whether the US waited too long to make this shift.
According to the Russian presidential spokesman, "there is a plethora of questions on the agenda: talks on energy, cooperation in the field of high tech, joint investments and trade.”
On Saturday, CGTN media in China said that “Russia on Saturday officially withdrew from the Treaty on Open Skies, according to local media.” Russia had planned to do this since June 7. It was related to the fact that the 2002 treaty had already been undermined when former US President Donald Trump chose to withdraw from it in November 2020. He accused Russia of violating the treaty.
CGTN noted that “the treaty, which became effective in 2002, allows state parties to conduct short-notice, unarmed reconnaissance flights over the territories under the sovereignty of other signatories to collect data on military forces and activities as a way to build confidence and familiarity.”
Russia claims that "regrettably, our efforts did not allow us to preserve the treaty in the form in which its authors conceived it," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday, calling the US the "initiator" of the collapse of the treaty.
What is important here is that it signifies how much relations have eroded between Moscow and Washington and appears linked to greater coordination between Beijing and Moscow. Both China and Russia appear to back Iran as well as Iran is negotiating its nuclear program and sanctions with the US and Europeans.
It should be noted that last week Microsoft also warned that hackers linked with the governments of China, Iran, North Korea and Turkey have been threatening a “critical flaw in software used by big tech firms around the world,” according to CNN.
“The activity from the foreign hacking groups includes experimentation with the vulnerability, integration into existing hacking tools,” the report said. “It's the latest fallout from the recently revealed software flaw, which the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency says could affect hundreds of millions of devices globally.”
The fact the report mentioned China, Iran, North Korea and Turkey illustrates how these countries are working together against the US and the West. Add in Russia and it represents a new alliance system.