The first points were firmly scored by the U.S. President, who had been met on the tarmac by Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng, while Putin was greeted by lower ranking Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Trump’s swag game was also far superior—flanked by the bosses of Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia among other bigwigs—while Putin’s entourage consisted of square-jawed security personnel and a smattering of sanctioned banking and oil execs.
Upon arrival, Putin gushed that “today, our relations have reached an unprecedentedly high level, serving as a model of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction.” Xi, meanwhile, was more poetic, welcoming his guest via the two millennia-old Chinese idiom: “One day apart feels like three autumns have passed.”
“Xi has consolidated this position that Great Power politics now must go through Beijing,” says Alexander Korolev, an expert in China-Russia relations at the University of New South Wales. “This is now where the most important issues of global geopolitics are being discussed.”
Trump and Putin have very different styles, of course, with the former real estate mogul lapping up the pomp and pageantry on offer in Beijing, while the ex-KGB spy appeared polite but stiff before the cheering crowds.
“Trump went for cash, to put it bluntly” says Korolev. “He went as a tradesman to sell airplanes and do some agricultural deals. But Putin goes more for strategic cooperation.”
One thing both guests have in common is being mired in wars that they started and from which they are increasingly eager to extricate themselves. China has the wherewithal to help on both counts—selling advanced weapons to Russia and reducing purchases of Iranian oil—though Xi has steadfastly refused to exert that leverage. Although the Financial Times reported that Xi told Trump that Putin may end up regretting the war, citing people familiar with the conversation, any hope that China may intervene to resolve that quagmire is scant.
As Russia’s economy flounders, dependence on China becomes more entrenched, with China hoovering up over a quarter of Russia’s exports. Beijing has bought more than $367 billion of Russian oil and gas since the start of the war, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
Any deal would boost Putin's domestic image, which is flagging amid coup rumors and Russian forces bogged down on the battlefield. Speaking after a scaled-back Victory Day military parade in Moscow earlier this month, Putin said the Ukraine war “is coming to an end,” while lashing out at Western support for Kyiv. However, Putin’s intentions in issuing those comments have been hotly debated.
Regarding the Iran war, while Beijing has been enjoying a healthy dose of schadenfreude as the U.S. sullies its international reputation, both Russia and China share unease over the final outcome. In particular, the Kremlin may baulk at the autocratic Iranian regime falling only to be replaced by a government more aligned with the U.S. just south of the Caucuses.
Conversely, there is room for Moscow to play a role in any settlement, with Russia a possible destination for Iran’s stockpiles of some 440 kg enriched uranium to be diluted. That may offer Putin a route back into the good graces of the international community, which Trump also appears happy to assist with, already inviting the pariah to December’s G20 in Miami and waiving certain sanctions.
“China and North Korea will coordinate more against the new militarism of Japan,” says one source briefed on the arrangements, asking to remain anonymous since plans had not yet been officially announced.
It’s more evidence that, while Trump and Putin can debate points scored regarding pomp and poetry, the ultimate winner in Beijing is irrefutable. It was back in 2017 during the 19th Chinese Communist Party National Congress when Xi first announced his goal to reclaim “center stage” of the world. Nearly a decade on, few would deny that time has come.
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