Russia and China Agree to Work Together Against US Sanctions

Following new sanctions implemented by the Biden administration on Russian and Chinese officials, Beijing and Moscow have agreed to work together to push back against US sanctions. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov held talks on Monday and Tuesday in the southern Chinese city of Guilin.

The officials denounced “illegitimate” sanctions imposed on them by the US and what they called “destructive” Cold War tactics from Washington. Wang and Lavrov agreed to “work together against sanctions.”

In a Western blitz against China, the US, UK, EU, and Canada all announced sanctions on Chinese officials on Monday over alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Earlier this month, Biden coordinated sanctions on Russia with the EU over the jailing of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

“[Western powers] should know that the days when they can arbitrarily interfere in China’s internal affairs by making up stories and lies are long gone,” Wang said during the talks, according to The South China Morning Post.

In a statement after the talks, Lavrov slammed the US. “We noted the destructive nature of the United States’ intentions to undermine the UN-centered international legal architecture, relying on military-political alliances of the Cold War era and creating new closed alliances in the same vein,” he said.

Ahead of meeting with Wang, Lavrov said Russian China could resist sanctions by boosting domestic science and technology industries and moving away from the US dollar. “The risks of sanctions should be reduced by strengthening the self-reliance of the science and technology industry, [and] promoting settlement by local and other international currencies that can replace the US dollar so as to gradually move away from the Western-controlled international payment system,” he said on Monday.

Russia and China’s decision to counter sanctions together is the inevitable result of the US targeting the countries with such measures. A similar case can be seen with the growing trade relationship between Iran and Venezuela, two countries that are essentially under a US embargo.

Since Caracas and Tehran have nothing to lose by trading with each other, the two countries started trading gas for gold, a currency that US sanctions cannot touch. The relationship has irked the US and led to Washington outright stealing Iranian fuel that was bound for Venezuela.