- One of the Chinese president’s meetings centred on deals. The other focused on confrontation
Key Points
- Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump met with Xi Jinping within a week of each other.
- Some experts say China is increasingly positioning itself as “the place where major power diplomacy must pass”
Peking duck, Chinese opera and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake — this was Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s grand welcome for his “old friend”, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Not seeing you for one day feels like being apart for three autumns,” Putin told Xi, a saying from one of China’s oldest poetry collections, as they met in Beijing.
The friendly exchange took place in the Great Hall of the People, an imposing building on Tiananmen Square that houses China’s legislature, the same spot where United States President Donald Trump stood less than a week ago.
The timing of the back-to-back meetings might have been coincidental, as Trump postponed an earlier summit in March to stay in the US during the war in Iran.
The symbolism behind them, however, was no accident.
“These two visits reveal a deeper structural shift in global politics,” Alexander Korolev, senior lecturer in politics and international relations at UNSW Sydney, told SBS News.
“China, I think, is increasingly becoming the central node … We can call it a great triangle reversed, or we can probably call it a great triangle with Chinese characteristics.
“During the Cold War, the United States was the apex of the great triangle, but now it is flipped, and China is sitting at the top of the triangle,” he said.
“It’s not that China is trying to put Washington and Moscow against each other, but it’s increasingly positioning itself as the centre of the system, the place where major power diplomacy must pass.”
Two old friends meeting
Putin’s meeting with Xi did not go entirely as the Russians would likely have hoped, as he failed to secure a deal for the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, which will transport gas from Siberia to China if it goes ahead.
Russian officials said both sides had reached a “general understanding on the parameters” of the project.
The leaders also issued a joint statement, outlining plans to expand collaboration across various fields, from artificial intelligence to the conservation of rare species such as tigers, leopards, and pandas.
Edward Chan, a postdoctoral fellow of China Studies at the Australian National University, said the meeting “is likely to underscore continuity in the China–Russia relationship.”
“Xi wanted to remain committed to its partnership with Putin. This was reflected in the joint statement, which continued to emphasise the China–Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination,” he told SBS News.
“In that sense, the meeting was seen more as a reaffirmation of the China–Russia relationship amid the US–China stabilised great power relationship.”
Xi and Putin also criticised Trump’s Golden Dome missile defence shield — a space-based missile interceptor system.
How did Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s summits differ?
The criticism came almost a week after Trump described Xi as a “great leader” and said it was an “honour” to be his friend as the two leaders met.
That meeting, however, went differently. Xi’s public remarks were broadly interpreted as less positive than Trump’s, with the Chinese leader expressing hope that the US and China could avoid conflict and be “partners rather than rivals”.
Chan said the summit “appeared to confirm a relatively positive personal relationship between the two leaders, not necessarily the bilateral relations”.
“It suggests, at least in the short term, great-power competition will be managed through stabilisation, even if underlying strategic rivalry remains unchanged,” he said.
The meeting that Trump touted as possibly the “biggest summit ever” ended without any joint statements, press conferences, or formal agreements.
David Smith, an associate professor from the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, told SBS News: “There wasn’t really much done in terms of trade deals between China and the US. Trump is talking about deals, but there wasn’t really anything significant in them.”
During the meeting, Xi even mentioned “the Taiwan question”, according to Chinese state media, warning: “If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. If handled poorly, the two countries will collide or even clash.”
Korolev said the “dynamic of the meetings” was different.
“Putin came to visit his old friend. There was much more friendliness,” he said.
“There is a display of a higher level of trust, and it’s kind of a comfortable, non-threatening environment.
“The situation with Trump is very different. Xi Jinping was very distant, starting with the handshake, and maintained dominant body language throughout the meeting and this kind of rhetoric [that] borders on direct threats.”
During the Trump-Xi meeting, the Chinese leader asked if the two countries could “overcome the Thucydides trap” — a foreign policy concept that describes how rising powers threatening to replace established ones often lead to war.
The same issue was phrased differently in the Xi-Putin summit, with the countries advocating for a “multipolar” world in their statement.
“Both China and Russia have been trying to promote it for a decade at least. What it means in the current context is actually that the US, or even more broadly the West, should not be the only kind of pole of power,” Korolev said.
“For China, it’s more about China being on par with the United States. For Russia, it’s more about Russia being like a full-fledged member of international communities.”
‘Moving towards’ a new world
Xi’s meetings with the US and Russian presidents happened while both countries are engaged in wars — The US with Iran, and Russia with Ukraine.
Reuters reported that China’s armed forces covertly trained approximately 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, with some of them returning to participate in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
China has stated that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator, the same role it says it wants to play for the war in the Middle East.
“I think China, so far, has been quite reluctant to play a mediating role in Ukraine [while] it has been prompted by many in the West to step in, giving the significant leverage that Beijing has over Moscow,” Korolev said.
“The situation in the Middle East might be different because that one directly affects Beijing’s energy security, and here, Beijing might be more willing to play a mediating role.
“But again, we don’t see a very proactive initiative that would signal that China wants that role.”
While some experts say China is unlikely to play a mediating role in global conflicts, Smith believes that the back-to-back visits by Trump and Putin to the Great Hall of the People within days of each other could signal a shifting global order.
“This idea of a multipolar world is one that we are moving towards, whether people accept it or not,” he said.
“I don’t think that, in relative terms, any power can be as dominant as the United States was in the post-war 20th century. And so I think that we are moving towards a much more multipolar world.”
@SBS News, with additional reporting by Reuters
