 The war in Ukraine has led to great tumult internationally and relations between many countries have entered a new phase. In the months before the war broke out and after, many experts have been keely observing the relations between Russia and China and how the latter has decided to position itself. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin had met before the Winter Olympics, where they had announced an energy deal and strengthening of ties. After the war broke out, China has taken a careful position in light of the various complexities involved. Marco Fernandez of Dongxing News analyzes the position taken by China. Well first of all, we all know how much China and Russia has been closer and closer in the last years. It's ironic that this partnership has started to be strengthened right after 2014 after the coup in Ukraine, which is actually a big part of the problem we have now. So that's the moment where Putin and Xi get close together and China and Russia and they start to build this new partnership, this new strategic partnership. So this is the first thing. And China every single day, China is saying again, the friendship with Russia is rock solid as they say. But given that, of course, China has been very cautious. China, all the statements from Chinese diplomacy right now and even President Xi Jinping is always in the sense of trying to be neutral, but trying to be in a position where China can mediate some of the negotiations. So if you see the last days, there's intense diplomatic actions by China. President Xi Jinping met with President Macron from France and the Prime Minister, Chancellor Olaf Scholz from Germany right after that or right before that, Wang Yi, the Foreign Ministry, he spoke with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Kuleba. And the last days, Wang Yi has been talking to Borel, Joseph Borel from European Union, has been talking to foreign ministers of Italy and France. So every day you have a different round of talks by China. So China is clearly and of course always saying that we need a peaceful negotiation, we need a peaceful solution, the war must stop, but we also have to respect the concerns, security concerns of Russia and we also have to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine. So it's actually a very, it's sort of a very complicated situation for China because of course, situation in Ukraine for China has something also to do with their own concerns about their sovereignty of their territory that's being attacked by the Western powers in the last year. So it's a very complicated situation, but I think we can say that at the end of the day, as even Joseph Borel, which is the sort of like a foreign ministry of European Union, he said a few days ago, only China can play this role of being a mediator right now because US can't, European Union can't. And of course everybody knows that China has a very good relationship with Russia. So at the end of the day, looks like China will be, will play a major role in the negotiations in the solutions for this conflict. And this is what we have to wait for the next day. The relationship between China and Russia has been growing stronger for years now as both countries have identified that each provides elements which the other is in need of. They have also played a complementary role on many issues internationally. What has been the thrust of the Russia-China relationship over the years? Now actually this is like a, this is a perfect marriage I would say because for one side we know that Russia is a major military power but also a major energy and food and mining power. So I mean Russia has huge amounts of natural resources that China needs desperately for its economic development. And for the other side China has a huge strength, economic, financial, technological strength that Russia also needs. And both together of course now have a similar or the same enemy which is Western powers which is US, Europe and NATO and this is not new. So of course from a geopolitical perspective this is probably the most important partnership of our ages, our age. So this is the first thing. But if you go, then if you go to the details to like all the economical and trade partnership trade for instance this year grew almost 40% from one year ago and reached almost 150 billion US dollars. And they want to double that in the next three to four years. And of course one example to sort of illustrate the importance of this partnership is that we know that one of the major issues between Russia and NATO lately was this issue with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, this huge pipeline that's bringing gas from Russia to Germany and Europe. So one of the first measures of Europe and Germany was to against Russia was to suspend the process of what is it called, the process to make work, make the license and everything for Nord Stream 2 that they were threatening already before the war and of course within the beginning of the war they just suspended that. So a few days right after that what happened is that Russia signed agreement, gas from the huge state company signed an agreement with China to provide to build a huge pipeline, new pipeline to China, which is more or less the same capacity of the Nord Stream 2. So this I think it's a very good example of what probably things that will happen after in the next months and years, which is a strengthening of this economic partnership because Russia will be hit by the sanctions, of course we have a lot of economic difficulties and of course the China probably will be a sort of a safe heaven to Russia. The same happened with wheat also a few days ago also China announced that they are suspending all the restrictions to the import of wheat from Russia. But if you go to the partnership it's I mean like coal, oil, gas, wheat and even technology thinking the space program of China which is now like one of the biggest in the world most important. Russia and China also been doing very important partnership for instance the next space station that China is building now it will be built together with Russia and so there's infinite sectors where both are strengthening the relations both economical but also geopolitical and like also in terms of geopolitics it's important to remember that China and Russia has been built a sort of like a group in the United Nations fighting against the unilateral sanctions of US and the positions of the Western powers. This is China, Russia but also Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Angola and many other countries. So clearly what's going to happen now with this conflict is that there's a tendency of China and Russia getting even closer and even more with like a more strength in this partnership that ever. Following February 24th when the war began there was a barrage of sanctions on Russia. China has been paying close attention to these measures as it has also been a target of heavy sanctions and economic warfare before especially during the Trump administration. How is China analyzing these issues and the precedence that it might set? First of all China is being very clear in its position about the sanctions they are against the sanctions against Russia because well basically they said the sanctions first of all will escalate tensions and this makes negotiations harder that's the most important thing right now. Second of course will harm the Russian economy and people will suffer even more and China is aware of it because China has been as you said targeted sanctions from US in the last years and third and worst of all it will worse the global economy because of course you have already a problem with the war as we just said that I mean Russia and even Ukraine they are like biggest producer of energy of food and case of Russia fertilizers so this of course will be a huge problem for the global economy and China of course is worried about that because it's also going to be a problem in China so for instance some data we have so far the commodity prices since January the global price has already increased 26 percent according to the economists this is the biggest shock of commodity prices since 1973 and of course the sanctions would just get worse because of that so some examples like the wheat you know that russian and ukraine together they produce 29 percent almost one third of the wheat of the planet right now the prices of the wheat before the war started was already 47 percent more than at the beginning of the year since the war started last week they increased more 30 percent and in case of China adding to that the specific situation that the wheat crop this year in China the so-called the winter crop would probably be or maybe big chance of being the the worst in 20 years because they have very heavy rains last year in the moment that you're supposed to plant and and and now they will suffer for that so in case of China I mean imagine wheat is like one of the staple the most important staple food in China so and you go on and then the barley the corn fertilizers Russia is the world biggest port of fertilizer and the prices already have doubled in the last 18 months and they will go higher now the same with oil same with coal of course you have the problem with the war but the sanctions are going to be another factor of increasing prices because you know Russia now many banks of Russia major banks are excluded from swift and so this will make the global payments even harder this takes us to also one of the key issues of our times which is the power of dollar as we know people are using this this expression now less less days this is a sort of like a nuclear option to churn a country from the the swift so basically what might happen now it's also that China and Russia will increase they their trade in in rubbles and in UN and this is this is a big big thing and not only China because other countries also that has to do trade with with Russia they also will look for alternatives so for instance right now in case of the the relation of both China and Russia last year 25 percent of the trade between the two countries were made without a dollar and of course this is a tendency to increase now but what we don't know yet and China don't know yet this is the the main worry I think we can see this in Chinese media all the debates is that what US will do also against China because US is also warning threatened actually China that if China tried to circumvent the sanctions against Russia US will punish China so this is also one of the big question marks we have right now because nobody knows what US will do after after the end of the war and what are the US would do with other countries including China who are going to try and create an alternative to the dollar and to the swift so this is we have to wait but at the end of the day I think the biggest problem of all this happening is that as we know in every war the poor will suffer more the poor will pay the the biggest price for the all the conflict and all the sanctions for more videos on people's struggles please subscribe to our youtube channel