The Chairman of the State Duma
Vyacheslav Volodin
Vyacheslav Victorovich
The Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the eighth convocation. Elected in single mandate constituency № 163 (Saratov constituency - Saratov Oblast)
held a meeting with the Chairman of the Standing Committee
of the National People's Congress of China Zhao Leji. They discussed the key
areas of cooperation of the current inter-parliamentary cooperation between
Russia and China.
“The relations between our two states are based on the principles of equality, respect to each other’s interests, mutual beneficial cooperation,” noted Vyacheslav Voldoin. “Despite of external challenges, we become closer. We are not just friends, we are allies and neighbours. This is also a good foundation for developing relations between our states and strengthening friendship between our nations,” he added.
The Chairman of the State Duma noted the mutual understanding and friendship between the leaders of Russia and China – Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, who created a good basis for development of dialogue between our states. “We, for our part, should do everything possible to make our own contribution within the parliamentary dimension to develop relations between our nations,” he said.
“My dear friend, I am so glad to meet with you again. Russia-China relations have a sustainable development, and first of all, that is possible because of the leading role of the heads of our states,” emphasized the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China.
Zhao Leji is convinced that the recent meeting of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin “send a strong message that China-Russia cooperation is unbreakable, our practical cooperation has good prospects, we have centuries-old friendship and there are well-coordinated positions of the two world powers.”
According to Vyacheslav Volodin, the cooperation between Russia and China at the parliamentary level is of special nature. “Our interaction with the National People's Congress of China is one of the best examples of inter-parliamentary cooperation. We have started to choose ourselves topics for discussion. We have managed to coordinate the work of the Inter-parliamentary Commission and it is its 11th meeting today. We created a working group which has already held five meetings. Our relevant committees have also started to cooperate at their level,” emphasized the Chairman of the State Duma.
He also noted the importance of time that has been spent to build interaction between the legislators the high level, but there is no doubt that it was worth it: “The current formats of cooperation have proven to be effective.”
The previous meeting between Vyacheslav Volodin and Zhao Leji was held in August 2025 as part of the events of the official visit of the Chairman of the State Duma to the People’s Republic of China. They discussed issues related to development of inter-parliamentary dialogue between Russia and China and opened the 10th meeting of the Inter-parliamentary Commission on Cooperation between the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and the National People's Congress of China. The 11th meeting of the Commission will be held later today in Moscow.
