SpaceWar.com reports: “China’s top diplomat told Russia’s security chief that bilateral relations could ‘break new ground’ this year as the two officials met in Beijing on Sunday, according to an official government statement.

Beijing and Moscow have ramped up economic cooperation and diplomatic contacts in recent years, and their strategic partnership has grown closer since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Russian Security Council secretary Sergei Shoigu in the Chinese capital on Sunday in the latest round of ‘strategic communication’, Beijing’s foreign ministry said.

Wang told Shoigu that China and Russia must work together to uphold multilateralism in a time of ‘turmoil’, and ‘advocate for an equal and orderly multipolar world’.

China is willing to work with Russia to ‘deepen strategic coordination, and push China-Russia relations to break new ground in the new year’, Wang told Shoigu, according to the ministry’s readout…”