BeijingPutin arrived 5 days after Trump left.
China hosted Trump and Putin in the same compound within a week — positioning itself as indispensable to both blocs.
40 bilateral agreements are due for signature; Russia and China have not committed on routing post-Iran gas supplies.
Sources: The Guardian
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM POSTURE
China's classical self-conception is zhongguo — the center to which others come. Hosting rival powers in sequence is not neutrality; it is a deliberate performance of centrality, where Beijing becomes the fixed point and Washington and Moscow the orbiting visitors.
THE NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP
Xi and Putin declared a partnership with 'no limits' in February 2022, weeks before the Ukraine invasion. The phrase was Russian-drafted; China has since quietly qualified it. Trade has tripled to roughly $240bn, but Beijing has refused to supply lethal aid and has not recognized annexed Ukrainian territories.
THE GAS ROUTING QUESTION
Power of Siberia 1 delivers Russian gas to China since 2019. Power of Siberia 2 — through Mongolia, potentially 50 bcm/year — has been negotiated for over a decade. China has refused Russia's pricing, knowing that with European markets closed, Moscow has nowhere else to sell. The buyer sets the terms.
THE JUNIOR PARTNER
Russia's economy is roughly one-tenth of China's. In 1990 it was larger. The relationship has inverted within a single lifetime, and Moscow's elite — schooled in Soviet primacy — is still adjusting to a posture in which Beijing decides the price of Siberian gas and the yuan increasingly settles bilateral trade.
THE TRIANGLE
Kissinger's 1972 opening to Beijing exploited the Sino-Soviet split to isolate Moscow. The current alignment is the inverse — a Beijing-Moscow axis that Washington has not found a wedge to split. Hosting Trump and Putin in the same week signals China believes it no longer needs to choose.