Vladimir Putin really loves a long table. Photographs of their meetings are famous, with the Russian leader at one end and the man he’s talking to so far away that you wonder if it’s hard for them to hear each other.
Not so when he met Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official.
There they sat hand in hand, with an oval table in the middle.
It may have been that the intimacy was achieved by sitting at the previously used table, with the Chinese delegation directly in the middle rather than the tall heads but the effect was the same.
When the footage was released, it appeared to be a deliberate symbolic move to show that he felt safe enough to be around the representative of such an important friend.
Of course, it hasn’t always been this way. Decades ago, Beijing’s network of underground fallout shelters was built to protect the Chinese capital’s citizens from a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Yet Xi’s administration now sees Russia as a frontline enemy of American influence. A nation that – like North Korea – might be considered an international pariah but which serves a useful geopolitical purpose.
The Chinese government was not even embarrassed when President Putin returned home from attending the Beijing Winter Olympics, announced a new “no border” relationship with China and launched an invasion of Ukraine within weeks.
Many have asked whether Mr. Xi was warned of the impending war when he sat next to his Russian counterpart who was barely thinking about anything else at the time.
China is treading a very delicate path in its dealings with Russia over Ukraine. Mr. Xi may feel he is going down the rails with confidence, but some believe the path is fraying at the edges, making it increasingly difficult to stand by Beijing’s claims of neutrality.
Wang Yi came out of the meetings declaring that China and Russia were promoting “peace and stability” together.
In other parts of the world, using expressions like “peace and stability” on a visit to Russia just before the first anniversary of that country’s invasion of Ukraine may seem absurd.
Beijing knows this and has decided to go ahead, despite the reputational damage it will incur, because it has assessed that offering significant moral support to Vladimir Putin is now more important.
When Wang Yi met with Sergei Lavrov, he said, “I am ready to discuss with you, my dear friend, issues of mutual interest and I look forward to reaching new agreements.”
Russia’s foreign minister said the two were showing solidarity and defending each other’s interests despite “extreme global turmoil”, as if the turmoil was in the sky rather than the chaos of their own government formation. There is something floating.
In Beijing earlier this week, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang warned that the Ukraine conflict could spiral out of control if some countries continue to add fuel to the fire.
He was referring to the United States, a country that openly provides military aid to Ukraine’s military but has warned China not to supply arms and ammunition to Russia.
Analysts are now asking what options China might consider if President Putin appears to be facing a humiliating defeat on the battlefield.
Researchers in the US say Beijing is already providing Russia with dual-use equipment, technology that may be ostensibly civilian but can also be used to repair fighter jets, for example.
It has also made no attempt to hide the fact that it is buying oil and gas from Russia to make up for markets lost to its neighbor’s post-invasion sanctions.
