Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the legislatures of China and Russia on Wednesday to ensure the “synergy” of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), state media reported.
During a meeting with Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the Russian State Duma, in the capital Beijing, Xi further called on the parliaments of both countries to deepen communication and coordination in international platforms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS group of major emerging economies and the G-20, China’s state-run Xinhua News reported.
“Xi expressed his hope that the Russian State Duma and the National People’s Congress of China will strengthen exchanges of legislative experience and give full play to the role of special committees and friendship groups of the two legislatures to provide better legal support for bilateral cooperation,” the report said.
It said that Xi expressed his country’s readiness to further deepen bilateral relations with Russia, adding that strengthening cooperation between the two countries’ legislative bodies plays an important role in ensuring the “steady and long-term development of China-Russia relations.”
Volodin said relations between Xi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are largely the reason why Russia and China are “not only strategic partners, but also strategic friends.”
“The task of parliament is to legislate all the decisions that have been reached at your level, to do everything possible on our part so that within the framework of the parliamentary dimension, we also contribute to the development of relations between our countries and peoples,” he said during the meeting, according to a State Duma statement.
Volodin further said that relations with China are extremely important for the Russian side, noting that Beijing is Moscow’s neighbor and they have been “building relationships for a long time and value them.”
Volodin arrived on an official visit to China on Tuesday, during which he and his delegation will also head to the city of Nanjing.
The Belt and Road Initiative, billed as recreating the ancient Silk Road to boost global trade infrastructure, was proposed by Xi in 2013 to connect China with the markets of Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
Established in 2014 by the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, the EAEU is an economic bloc of five post-Soviet states in Eurasia, with the inclusion of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan in 2015.
Source : aa
