Putin arrives in Beijing for Xi summit days after Trump's China visit

Vladimir Putin stepped off the plane in Beijing on a Tuesday in May, beginning his twenty-fifth visit to China—a journey that carried particular weight arriving just days after Donald Trump had made the same trip. The Russian president was there for a two-day state visit, scheduled to meet with Xi Jinping on Wednesday. The agenda was dense: the war in Ukraine, the Middle East, energy deals that had been stalled for years. Both leaders were framing the moment as something larger than bilateral business—a chance to demonstrate that Moscow and Beijing together represented stability in a world that felt increasingly fractured.

Before landing, Putin released a message to the Chinese people. He called Xi a "good friend" and said their countries had reached an "unprecedented" level of cooperation. The personal relationship mattered, he suggested, because it allowed them to pursue "the most ambitious plans" and actually execute them. In his telling, Russia and China weren't acting against anyone; they were working for peace and shared development. It was the language of partnership, but it was also a message to Washington and Europe: these two powers were aligned.

The timing carried symbolic weight. This year marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Treaty of Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation between the two nations—a document signed in 1999 that had become the foundation for everything that followed. Just before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Xi and Putin had stood in Beijing and declared an "unlimited friendship." That phrase had stuck with them ever since, accompanying every deepening of their political, commercial, and energy ties.

According to the Kremlin, the two leaders would sign roughly forty agreements during their meeting. These weren't ceremonial documents. They included joint declarations on strengthening their strategic partnership and, more provocatively, on developing what they called a "new international order." That language—the idea that Russia and China were building something fundamentally different from the post-Cold War system—was not accidental. It was a statement of intent.

Ukraine would loom over the talks, even if it wasn't the only item on the table. European countries had been pressing China for months to use its influence with Moscow to push for a negotiated end to the war. Just the day before Putin arrived, China's Foreign Ministry had to deny a report in the Financial Times claiming that Xi had told Trump during his recent visit that Putin might come to regret launching the invasion. The ministry called the report "completely fabricated." But the fact that China felt compelled to deny it suggested how delicate the position was. Since the war began, China had maintained an ambiguous stance: it called for respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity everywhere, while simultaneously insisting on attention to Russia's "legitimate security concerns." It was a careful balance, and it was showing signs of strain.

Energy was another major focus. Russia wanted to move forward on Siberia Force-2, a pipeline project designed to increase the flow of Russian gas into China. The numbers were substantial: Russia had shipped 101 million tons of oil and 49 billion cubic meters of gas to China the previous year. These weren't marginal flows. They were the sinews of an economic relationship that had grown steadily more important to both countries, especially after Western sanctions had cut Russia off from much of the global economy.

What made this moment distinctive was the compression of diplomatic activity. Trump had just been in Beijing. Now Putin was arriving. Both were seeking to deepen their relationships with China, but from opposite directions and with opposite goals. The question hanging over the summit was whether China would tilt decisively toward Russia, or whether it would maintain its careful neutrality—a position that was becoming harder to sustain as the world seemed to be sorting itself into competing blocs. The agreements Putin and Xi were about to sign would offer some answers.