On Trump’s Heels, Putin Gets a Lavish Welcome in China but No Blockbuster Deals

President Vladimir Putin has never been a stranger to the red carpet in Beijing, and his arrival in the Chinese capital this week was no different. The Russian leader attended a grand welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People and hugged an adulatory Chinese engineer named Peng Pai 26 years after the pair first met in 2000. But though the Russian delegation signed more than 20 agreements strengthening cooperation in areas ranging from trade to tech, it notably left without securing a block

Experts told The Moscow Times on Wednesday that for what Putin’s visit lacked in deliverables, it made up for in underscoring the relevance of one of Russia’s most important partnerships. “In a way, it’s much more of a symbolic visit, but in foreign policy and big politics symbols mean a lot,” said Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. In spite of the flurry of agreements, this meeting was not supposed to be about attaining “consequential outcomes,” Umarov said. Putin has met with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping annually to shore up ties since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and his subsequent break with the West. Unlike his past visits to meet with his “old friend,” looming over this trip was U.S. President Donald Trump, who held a summit with Xi in Beijing last week. The fact that the visits took place in such quick succession, and that Putin was treated to the same level of pageantry as Trump, “puts him on the same level as those great powers, which of course is a very important reputational gift that Xi Jinping grants to Vladimir Putin,” Umarov said. Some analysts interpreted the Trump meeting as a sign of stabilizing relations between the U.S and China. If Putin’s goal was to prove that closer U.S.-China relations are not mutually exclusive with Russia’s close ties to China, he succeeded, said Joseph Torigian, an associate professor at American University in Washington. “The ability to go to China and have this conversation and show that he’s not isolated, that one of the most powerful countries in the world continues to have his back, is meaningful,” Torigian told The Moscow Times. At a press conference, Putin repeated lines about Russia and China’s shared foreign policy philosophies that rebuke Western hegemony, concepts he often invokes to emphasize their strong relations. He said the countries “are committed to independent and autonomous foreign policies, operate in close strategic partnership and play an important stabilizing role on the global stage.” Meanwhile, Xi appeared to take aim at the U.S.

Key points

• Experts told The Moscow Times on Wednesday that for what Putin’s visit lacked in deliverables, it made up for in underscoring the relevance of one of Russia’s most important partnerships.
• “In a way, it’s much more of a symbolic visit, but in foreign policy and big politics symbols mean a lot,” said Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
• In spite of the flurry of agreements, this meeting was not supposed to be about attaining “consequential outcomes,” Umarov said.
• Putin has met with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping annually to shore up ties since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and his subsequent break with the West.
• Unlike his past visits to meet with his “old friend,” looming over this trip was U.S.