Devika Bhat

And so there's a pre-existing relationship here.

And this trip feels a lot more about, from the Chinese point of view anyway, working out how to sort of leverage that relationship in a kind of useful way.

Now that China is having this moment on the diplomatic stage now.

that it's long kind of sought, it's long wanted to be seen as the sort of seat, the center of power of global diplomacy in a way it's not really had the opportunity to before.

And I think, you know, there's a big sense now that although there is this relationship with Russia, China will want to really think about how it uses that to its advantage.

The fact that the two visits come so closely together, it's almost Xi trying to show he can meet the world's top leaders whenever he likes.

Everyone sort of wants a piece of him.

Yes.

And I think, you know, there's no doubt that Beijing is really reveling in this moment.

It sort of gets to say that because of the war in Iran and because of the war in Ukraine.

It gets to sort of relish this role that it can kind of seek to play as a sort of global player in diplomacy.

There's been no sort of direct mention of the US.

Xi has sort of warned of unilateral and hegemonic countercurrents running rampant in the international system.

And he also sort of said, as you say, the world faces the danger of reverting to the law of the jungle.

And Putin, interestingly, has kind of made a big thing of Russian and Chinese cooperation on the world stage and said that that's one of the key stabilizing factors in the world, which again, feels ironic, given the war in Ukraine.

But you know, some might say that we're in a position where the US's actions have sort of enabled both of them to say this, not with a straight face, because it still seems ridiculous,

But when the US is also now a volatile player, it has sort of enabled Xi to position himself in this kind of way.

Yes very much so so China definitely has the upper hand on this occasion in a way it may not have done in the past and I think both parties know that she knows that Putin knows that and you can sort of see it on how the trip has played out so even in the language there are kind of subtle differences in what they've sort of said so Putin has said that ties were at a

unprecedentedly high level, which is something he said before.

And, you know, it's this really unequivocal love for China in that sort of statement.