MOSCOW, June 18 (UPI) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao has ended a three-day state visit to Russia, leaving Saturday for Ukraine.
Hu arrived in Moscow on Wednesday after attending a Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported. On Friday, he addressed the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
After a long period of strained relations dating back to the 1950s, the two countries signed the China-Russia Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation in July 2001. Hu has made five state visits to Moscow since 2003 and also traveled to Russia to mark the 60th and 65th anniversaries of the end of World War II.
Hu spent much of his visit in talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The two presidents released a joint statement Thursday on international affairs.
Alexander Lukin, director of the Center for East Asia and SCO Studies at Moscow State University for International Relations, said in a recent article that "both Russia and China are unwilling to see the world as dominated by a super power."
"Instead, they think the world should have many poles, which will cooperate with each other according to international laws and under the guidance of the U.N. Charter," he said.
