Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer says countries like Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia are “strategically linked up”.

China is pleased to see Russia and the United States maintaining contact and improving ties to advance a political resolution of the Ukraine crisis, President Xi Jinping said in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the European Union’s top diplomat that Beijing can’t accept Russia losing its war against Ukraine as this could allow the United States to turn its full attention to China,