Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to China, the Netherlands’ new far-right governing coalition, and a U.S.-built floating pier off the Gaza Strip.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to China, the Netherlands’ new far-right governing coalition, and a U.S.-built floating pier off the Gaza Strip.
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Show of Unity
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday for the second time in less than a year. To celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations, they agreed to deepen their “strategic partnership,” bolstering military, economic, and energy cooperation. The two-day trip is Putin’s first foreign travel since beginning his fifth term in May.
“The China-Russia relationship today is hard-earned, and the two sides need to cherish and nurture it,” Xi said on Thursday, with Putin adding that they are working to create “a more just and democratic multipolar world order.”
The two leaders released a 7,000-word joint statement on Thursday addressing everything from space collaboration to nuclear power research to strategies for circumventing Western sanctions. The document also stressed Russian and Chinese opposition toward the United States, accusing Washington of attempting to disrupt the region’s “strategic security balance” and pledging “to counter Washington’s destructive and hostile move toward the so-called ‘dual containment’ of our countries.”
The attendance of both newly appointed Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and his predecessor, Sergei Shoigu, demonstrated the central role that Russia’s war in Ukraine played in Thursday’s talks. Beijing remains one of Moscow’s closest partners while Western nations seek to isolate the Kremlin for its war in Kyiv. Since the conflict began, China has provided Russia with advanced technology for civilian and military uses, and in February 2023, it proposed a 12-point peace plan that would allow Moscow to retain its territorial gains in Ukraine.
“Russia would struggle to sustain its assault on Ukraine without China’s support,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month, warning Beijing that “if China does not address this problem, we will.” The United States and European Union have criticized Xi’s peace plan.
Despite many topics up for discussion on Thursday, it is unclear whether the two leaders debated a proposed pipeline that would redirect Russian gas supplies heading to Europe toward China instead. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller did not travel with Putin’s delegation this week and instead met with officials in Iran. “Gazprom’s losses demonstrate the extent to which the Kremlin’s decision to turn off the gas tap to Europe in 2022 has backfired,” FP columnist Agathe Demarais argued.
Throughout the two leaders’ reigns, Xi and Putin have met more than 40 times, either in person or virtually. In February 2022, just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Xi and Putin declared a “no limits” partnership. And last year, bilateral trade hit a record $240 billion. On Friday, Putin will visit the Chinese city of Harbin, which was once home to tens of thousands of ethnic Russians.
Today’s Most Read
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What We’re Following
A win for Wilders. Dutch nationalist Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom struck a coalition deal with three other party leaders on Thursday, including the party of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte. After nearly six months of negotiations, this forms the Netherlands’ most right-wing government in decades. The so-called Hope, Courage, and Pride agreement places strict measures on asylum-seekers, aims to reduce the number of foreign students studying in the country, and halts family reunification plans for refugees, among other controversial policies.
The coalition must now select a prime minister, a position that Wilders has previously promised not to take. Last November, the Party for Freedom swept national elections, in large part due to Wilders’s anti-Islam rhetoric, including advocating for banning the Quran. Far-right and populist parties are now part of or leading a half-dozen governments in the European Union ahead of European Parliament elections in June.
Floating Gaza pier. The U.S. military finished constructing a floating pier off the Gaza Strip on Thursday that will be used to transport humanitarian aid into the region. As much as 500 tons of food will begin arriving within days, U.S. Central Command said, where it will then be placed onto delivery trucks and brought to aid distribution groups. No U.S. troops will set foot on Gaza’s soil. The roughly $320 million project aims to eventually ship 2 million meals to the enclave every day.
Gaza is facing famine, with some 700,000 Palestinians in Rafah currently displaced by fighting. The Rafah border crossing into Egypt, which once served as the primary aid delivery route into Gaza, is now under Israeli control. “It is time for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire and unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza,” United Nations chief António Guterres said on Thursday.
Attack on Fico. Slovakian police charged a 71-year-old man on Thursday with the attempted murder of Prime Minister Robert Fico. Local media described the suspect as an amateur poet, and officials said the man, radicalized after Slovakia’s presidential election in April, was a “lone wolf” who “cited his dissatisfaction with several of Fico’s policies as motivation for the attack.”
Fico was shot several times on Wednesday outside a cultural center in the city of Handlova, where he was meeting with supporters. He is now in stable but serious condition at a hospital in Banska Bystrica. No one else was injured in the attack. Fico is a three-time premier known for his populist policies, anti-Western rhetoric, and history of corruption allegations.
Chart of the Week
Steel may not grab headlines like cobalt or lithium, but it still plays a vital role in modern infrastructure and trade politics. Global production of crude steel hit $1.89 billion last year, FP’s Keith Johnson reported, continuing its overall steep upward trajectory since 2000. U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are capitalizing on this growth ahead of the November presidential election, with both candidates criticizing Japan’s proposed $14 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel.
Odds and Ends
More than 51,000 people flocked to Hong Kong’s Cheung Chau island this week for Thursday’s annual bun-scrambling competition. Tree-climbing athletes scaled a 46-foot tower, grabbing plastic buns along the way, as part of a festival to ward off disaster and plague. Around 9,000 buns marked with different point values decorated the structure, and contestants had three minutes to collect as many as possible. Congratulations are in order for Yip Kin-man, who won “Bun King” for his 776 points, and Kung Tsz-shan, aka the “Bun Queen,” for her 842 points.
