The Russian PM's visit to China will chart the next year's plans

Editor's note: Andrew Korybko, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a Moscow-based American political analyst with a Ph.D. in political science from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin is in China from December 19 to 20 to participate in the 28th regular meeting between Chinese and Russian heads of government with his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang. Coming at the end of the year, it'll predictably chart the next one's plans while reviewing the past year's achievements. China and Russia accomplished plenty over the last 12 months to be proud of, especially when it comes to bilateral trade.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the goal of $200 billion for next year was already passed this year. According to him, "We will do the calculations in the first quarter, and I think we will have $220–230 billion. This is a very decent level. Last year, we achieved a 31 percent increase in trade, and we will see a 30 percent increase this year." Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov said last month that $300 billion is the goal by 2030, which will likely be discussed this week.

Bilateral trade reached its historic level this year driven by the explosion in Russian energy exports to China. Russia became China's largest oil and gas supplier at the start of the year, and although monthly rates fluctuate based on the market, its leading position in that market is expected to remain constant. This forecast is based on the mega gas deal that was reached in October on the sidelines of the Third Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation, newly ramped-up oil supplies, and negotiations over the Power of Siberia 2.

Prime Minister Mishustin will therefore likely discuss this dimension of their bilateral trade and especially the progress being made on their long-running talks over that last-mentioned pipeline. Energy isn't all they talked about, since connectivity, logistics, and real-sector trade are important too. As Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko reaffirmed in an interview with Interfax, Russia's envisioned Greater Eurasian Partnership seeks to connect its Eurasian Economic Union with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

President Putin's keynote speech at this year's BRF emphasized that, and he confirmed that "a practical agreement on a concurrent and coordinated development" of both as well as "a non-preferential agreement on trade and economic cooperation" had already been reached to this end. Furthermore, Russia's ambitious railway plans in Siberia and the Russian Far East will complement its pipeline project to create multifunctional integration corridors between these two countries.

Accordingly, this practical aspect of bilateral ties is also expected to figure on the agenda of Prime Minister Mishustin's visit this week, both in terms of reviewing the past year's progress as well as charting the next one's plans.

There's much more to Chinese-Russian relations than just trade, of course, since these two major countries also closely cooperate in multilateral fora like BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the United Nations. Their coordination on the leading issues of our days is also within the premier's ambit to discuss.

These respectively involve accelerating financial multipolarity processes within BRICS, ensuring multidimensional security within the SCO, and urgent brokering a ceasefire in the latest Israeli-Hamas war via related joint efforts at the UN to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Each of these tasks is ambitious and will take far more than a single meeting between their premiers to achieve further progress, but the importance of those two can't be overstated.

The Chinese-Russian Strategic Partnership has been at the forefront of global systemic changes since their Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order in 1997. The preceding two and a half decades saw the previously U.S.-led unipolar world order rapidly decline as a result of that erstwhile hegemon's own policy mistakes and irreversible historical processes, the combination of which unleashed fast-moving systemic changes from 2022 till the present day.

It's within this historical context that Prime Ministers Li and Mishustin are meeting in Beijing. The significance of comprehensively strengthened Chinese-Russian ties goes beyond the bilateral realm since it supercharges multipolar processes that will benefit humanity.

Everyone stands to gain in the more equitable and just world order that those two are jointly helping to build, which is why the outcome of the premiers' latest meeting will be watched very closely for a glimpse of what to expect next year.  

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