Russian President Vladimir Putin is travelling to China to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, just a few days after US President Donald Trump wrapped up his own trip to Beijing.
Putin is scheduled to be in China on Tuesday and Wednesday in a visit likely to be closely watched as Beijing seeks to maintain stable relations with the United States while also preserving strong ties with Russia.
The Kremlin has said Putin and Xi plan to discuss economic cooperation between the two countries, but also “key international and regional issues.” The visit coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship signed in 2001.
“The Trump visit was about stabilising the world’s most important bilateral relationship; the Putin visit is about reassuring a long-standing strategic partner,” said Wang Zichen, deputy secretary-general for the Beijing-based think tank Centre for China & Globalization.
“For China, these two tracks are not mutually exclusive.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping met during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China, last August. (Sergei Bobylev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
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