The South China Morning Post highlighted (December 30) the remarks of Russia's Ambassador to China, Andrey Denisov at the Russian Embassy in Beijing on December 29  that China and Russia do not need to establish a military alliance because their relationship is strong enough already. He said, “Russian-Chinese cooperation has gone beyond a traditional alliance in many areas”. In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin, when asked about a possible alliance, replied: “We have not set that goal for ourselves. But, in principle, we are not going to rule it out either.”

On January 1, CCTV telecast that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin had exchanged New Years messages on December 31.