Li, for his part, welcomed the “comprehensive strategic cooperation between China and Russia in the new era”.
“I think that your visit to China this time will definitely leave a deep impression,” he said.
China is Russia’s largest trading partner, with trade between the countries reaching a record $190 billion last year, according to Chinese customs data.
Li noted on Wednesday that bilateral trade has already reached US$70 billion this year.
“That’s more than a 40 percent year-over-year increase,” he said.
“The scale of investment between the two countries is also continuously improving,” Lee added. “Strategic large-scale projects are steadily moving forward.”
After the negotiations, the ministers of the two countries signed a number of agreements on trade cooperation in services and sports, as well as patents and the export of Russian millet to China.
THE UPPER HAND OF CHINA
Mishustin is accompanied by high-ranking officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who deals with energy policy.
China became Russia’s top energy customer last year as gas exports from Moscow otherwise plummeted amid a flurry of Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.
According to Russian state media, Novak said at a forum in Shanghai on Tuesday that Russian energy supplies to China will increase by 40 percent annually in 2023.
Analysts say China is leading the way in relations with Russia and that its influence is growing as Moscow’s international isolation deepens.
The leaders of the two countries “are more united by common grievances and insecurities than common goals,” Ryan Haas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a former White House official, told AFP.
“They are both resentful and threatened by Western leadership in the international system and believe that their countries should be given more attention in matters related to their interests.”
In February, Beijing published a document calling for a “political settlement” of the Ukraine conflict, but Western countries said it could give Russia control over much of the territory it has seized.
During the summit held in Moscow in March, Xi invited Putin to visit Beijing.