A ‘marriage of convenience’ for Russia and China amid the Ukraine war, or more?
WASHINGTON — When China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin sat down together in Moscow on Monday, the trappings were those of imperial power, and the bonhomie hung heavy in the air.
They addressed one another as “dear friend.” They chatted while sitting in ornate chairs in a gilded salon. On Tuesday, the two autocratic presidents will dine at a state banquet in a richly frescoed hall used by a long line of Russian czars.
It was a clear message of two great powers coming together — along with the conspicuous absence of a third: the United States.
Xi’s three-day visit to Moscow is the clearest symbol yet of the deepening ties between two countries that have had a history of fraught relations but that are now finding common cause in directly challenging the U.S. and the West. China and Russia are intent on fundamentally shifting the architecture of the world
