Russian President Vladimir Putin Visits China Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Beijing has been choreographed as both spectacle and signal: a highly public embrace of China just as Washington courts Xi Jinping and Europe wonders how far the Moscow–Beijing axis will go.

First, the pageantry in Beijing

The visit kicks off with an unusually lavish protocol. Putin is to be greeted at the airport by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, before a full ceremonial welcome on Tiananmen Square with President Xi Jinping — treatment usually reserved for the closest of partners. Chinese media and Moscow-friendly outlets stress that Xi is not receiving Putin as “an ordinary guest,” but as the leader of a country with which China is “building a long-term strategic alliance.”

Behind the red carpet lies a dense agenda: politics, energy, investments, infrastructure, trade and joint projects, with around 40 documents expected to be signed. Flagship items include the “Power of Siberia 2” gas pipeline and a joint declaration on a “multipolar world” — a pointed nod against U.S.-led dominance.

A move framed as an answer to Washington

Pro-Russian commentators cast the trip as a direct answer to U.S. attempts to repair ties with Beijing after Donald Trump’s recent visit. Putin is going “to affirm the friendship between China and Russia,” foreign policy analyst Branimir Đokić argues, and to check whether Xi and Trump “agreed on something to the detriment of Russia.”

That fear is rooted in 1972, when Nixon’s opening to China undercut the Soviet Union. Moscow, Đokić suggests, now wants to ensure it is not again reduced to a bargaining chip “between the Chinese and the Americans.”

Europe watches — and lowers expectations

In Berlin, the mood is cooler. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says Germany is “carefully monitoring” the visit but sees no sign it will “fundamentally change” the strategic relationship between Moscow and Beijing. The hope in European capitals is modest: that Beijing might eventually use its leverage to “help end the conflict in Ukraine,” even as it keeps one hand firmly on its energy lifeline to a sanctioned Russia.