China, Russia hold security talks in Moscow

China’s top security official Chen Wenqing met Russian spy chief Sergey Naryshkin on the sidelines of a multilateral security meeting in Moscow, as the two nations move closer on security amid tensions with the West.

The meeting, reported by Chinese state news agency Xinhua on May 25, was their first since Chen was promoted to the top security job overseeing police and intelligence in October.

As well as being secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, Chen was also elevated to the Politburo – the ruling Communist Party’s top decision-making body – during the leadership reshuffle. He was previously the state security minister.

No details of the talks were released in the Xinhua report, South China Morning Post says.

Chen and Naryshkin both attended this week’s International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues in Moscow – along with officials from more than 100 countries and six international organisations – and both took a hard line against Western hegemony.

“Individual states are trying to use the pretext of protesting [for] democracy to substitute the existing world order based on international law with an artificial rules-based order,” Chen was quoted as saying during the meeting in a Tass report.

Naryshkin, meanwhile, accused the West of undermining global security and “blaming its mistakes in the Middle East on Russia”.

He said the “Anglo-Saxons” should deal with their domestic civil conflicts, “or better yet, to go to hell, where they belong”.

According to Xinhua, Chen also met representatives from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRICS emerging economies – regional groupings whose members Beijing is trying to forge closer ties with as its relations with many Western countries deteriorate.

He also met Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, with the two sides agreeing to deepen cooperation to safeguard their “security interests”.

“China is willing to work with Russia to formulate cooperation measures, practise the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, jointly implement the Global Security Initiative, and better safeguard the security interests of the two countries and the international community,” Chen was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

Chen’s trip to Moscow coincided with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s visit to Beijing this week when Mishustin and Xi pledged to strengthen cooperation as Russia seeks more trade support from China to offset the impact of Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

It also came as Chinese special envoy for Eurasian affairs Li Hui is touring Europe to promote Beijing’s peacemaking efforts for Ukraine. He is expected to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday.