China and Russia have forged a military 'partnership' - and they want the US to pay attention
- China's defense minister met his Russian counterpart in Moscow on Tuesday to show that they have forged a "strategic partnership" to oppose the US.
- "The Chinese side has come (to Moscow) to show Americans the close ties between the armed forces of China and Russia ... we've come to support you," Gen. Wei Fenghe, China's new defense minister, said.
- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also met in Moscow on Thursday where they expressed the same sentiment of a forged "strategic partnership."
China's defense minister met his Russian counterpart in Moscow on Tuesday to "let the Americans know about the close ties between the armed forces of China and Russia," according to the Associated Press.
"I am visiting Russia as a new defense minister of China to show the world a high level of development of our bilateral relations and firm determination of our armed forces to strengthen strategic cooperation," China's new defense minister, Gen. Wei Fenghe, said, according to CNN.
"The Chinese side has come (to Moscow) to show Americans the close ties between the armed forces of China and Russia ... we've come to support you."
The two defense ministers met for the seventh Moscow International Security Conference, according to Russian state owned media outlet TASS.
"To my memory, this is the 1st time in many years that a senior Chinese military leader says [something] like that publicly," Alexander Gubev, a Senior Fellow and Chair of Russia in Asia-Pacific Program at Carnegie Moscow Center, tweeted on Wednesday.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also met in Moscow on Thursday where they expressed the same sentiment of a forged "strategic partnership" against a "unipolar" world dominated by the US, the Associated Press reported.
In the last year, Russia and China have held joint naval drills in the South China Sea and the Baltics, as well as joint missile defense drills, according to the AP.
China and Russia have long supported each other's positions on North Korea and Syria at the United Nations, and Beijing increased its support for Moscow after the West imposed sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea, CNN reported.