Putin and Xi hail high-level ties as Russian leader gets red-carpet welcome in Beijing

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - BEIJING — Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed their high-level strategic ties and growing energy trade as they met in Beijing on Wednesday just days after Xi hosted President Donald Trump for a landmark summit.
Xi alluded to an increasingly fractious international situation as he sat down with Putin in the Great Hall of the People for meetings kicking off the Russian leader’s roughly 24-hour state visit in the Chinese capital.
“The international situation is marked by intertwined turbulence and transformation, while unilateral hegemonic currents are running rampant,” Xi said, using Beijing’s typical language to criticize what it sees as American foreign policy overreach.
Putin and Xi oversaw the signing of more than 40 cooperation agreements in areas such as trade, technology and media exchanges. They stressed their growing trade ties, particularly in oil and natural gas, and declared themselves aligned on international relations.
The countries’ ties have reached “the highest level in history,” Xi said after the signing ceremony, speaking to members of the delegations and journalists. The two sides also agreed to extend a friendship treaty first signed in 2001.
Putin said “the driving force behind economic cooperation is Russian-Chinese collaboration in the energy sector.”
In the face of this, China and Russia should enhance their “comprehensive strategic coordination,” Xi said, according to Chinese state media.
For Xi, hosting leaders of both the US and Russia in the space of a few days is a boon as he aims to cement China’s reputation as a global powerbroker.
But while both leaders received a red-carpet welcome, Putin’s visit was marked by a more outward display of the friendship between the two leaders and their countries.
Putin and Xi also signed a joint statement – a diplomatic gesture that’s become standard during the Russian leader’s state visits to China but which did not happen during Trump’s – reiterating their close ties and a desire for a “multipolar world.”
The joint criticism of the US dominance included Xi and Putin denouncing Trump’s plan to build a multibillion-dollar Golden Dome missile defense system.
“The parties believe that the US ‘Golden Dome’ project … poses a clear threat to strategic stability. These plans completely negate the key principle of maintaining strategic stability, which requires the inseparable interconnection of strategic offensive and strategic defensive weapons,” the two said in a joint statement, according to the Kremlin.
The Chinese leader directly addressed the US-Israeli war against Iran, saying that its “early end” will help reduce disruption to energy supplies, supply chains and trade.
“A comprehensive cessation of war brooks no delay, restarting hostilities is even less desirable, and persisting with negotiations is particularly important,” Xi said.
Putin is making his 25th official visit to China during his quarter-century as Russia’s leader and his first since the outbreak of fresh conflict in the Middle East.
Xi and Putin have significantly tightened their countries’ coordination across trade, diplomacy and security in recent years, driven together by shared frictions with the US and an aim to reshape a world order they see as unfairly dominated by the West.
Putin suggested earlier that energy, industry, agriculture, transport, and high-tech would be other topics on the agenda.
“Amid the crisis in the Middle East, Russia continues to maintain its role as a reliable supplier of resources, while China remains a responsible consumer of these resources,” he told Xi.
Putin’s welcome outside the monumental Great Hall on Wednesday morning had all the trappings of the typical state-visit welcome, which Beijing also bestowed on Trump last week.
Xi and a line-up of his top officials shook hands with the Russian president, before the relaxed-looking leaders stood shoulder to shoulder during a gun salute, while a military band played and Russian and Chinese flags fluttered in the background.
Children waved flags and flowers as the leaders walked by – a feature of last week’s ceremony that visibly amused Trump.
The two sides are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their 2001 “Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation,” which resolved long-standing border frictions and ushered in a new period of cooperation.
But behind the pomp and platitudes, Putin is also facing Xi in a much weaker position than during his last visit to Beijing in September.
Days before his arrival, Ukraine launched what Russian media said was the largest attack on Moscow in more than a year, targeting the capital with more than 500 drones. Russia has also been losing ground to Ukraine, last month suffering what analysts say was the first net loss of territory since August 2024.