How Trump and Putin’s back-to-back visits put Beijing at the centre of great-power diplomacy

BEIJING: For a moment, it looked like deja vu.

Just days after United States President Donald Trump’s visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin was greeted with much of the same pomp and ceremony - a 21-gun salute, rows of flag-waving children and chants of “warm welcome” outside the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday (May 20).

But analysts say the similarities ended there: Trump’s trip was about managing tensions in the world’s most consequential rivalry while Putin’s visit, by contrast, was about reaffirming one of China’s most important strategic partnerships.

And unlike Trump’s visit, Putin’s trip concluded with what had been notably absent just days earlier: a formal signing ceremony and a joint statement.  

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While the timing may not have been entirely of Beijing’s making, the optics were hard to miss: Two of the world’s most closely watched leaders arriving in China within days of each other.

The result was a rare diplomatic double act that made Beijing look like a power Washington and Moscow both had reason to engage.

“The net effect of almost simultaneous hosting of US and Russian leaders probably boosts Xi’s image,” said Michael Clarke, an associate professor at Deakin University’s Centre for Future Defence and National Security.

“It projects (China) as a power that the system’s other great powers seek to court, cooperate or bargain with,” Clarke said.

ONE RED CARPET, TWO DIFFERENT MESSAGES

The timing may have been coincidental, analysts said, but the optics of Trump and Putin’s back-to-back visits were striking.

Philipp Ivanov, founder of geopolitical risk advisory firm GRASP, said Putin’s visit had been tied to the 25th anniversary of the China-Russia Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, which saw both sides renounce territorial claims along their 4,300km border, paving the way for subsequent negotiations and laying the foundation for closer ties.

Trump’s Beijing trip, by contrast, had been delayed by the Iran war, he noted.

“It does somewhat reinforce the view of China’s centrality and importance,” Ivanov said, adding that Beijing had “played its diplomatic cards very well” in the current environment of heightened geopolitical competition.

The two visits offered Beijing very different kinds of diplomatic dividends, noted analysts.

China and Russia issued a joint communique on deepening strategic coordination, according to Chinese and Russian readouts.

The symbolism ran deeper still: This year marks 30 years since Beijing and Moscow established their strategic partnership.

The two sides also signed a raft of cooperation documents, with Russian state media Sputnik putting the number at 42. Areas covered included trade, technology, media and energy.

Energy was a key focus. Russian officials said Moscow and Beijing had agreed to accelerate implementation of the long-discussed Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, which would deliver Russian gas from western Siberia to China via Mongolia.

But the project still appeared short of a finalised commercial deal, with key details such as pricing yet to be settled.

Chinese readouts did not name Power of Siberia 2 directly.

The scale of the Russian delegation also pointed to the practical weight Moscow placed on the visit.

Russian officials said Putin was accompanied by a delegation that included five deputy prime ministers - Denis Manturov, Tatiana Golikova, Alexander Novak, Yury Trutnev and Dmitry Chernyshenko - as well as senior officials and ministers, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov.

Putin’s visit appeared more intimate and outcomes-focused, Clarke from Deakin University said, pointing to the “old friends” language used in Chinese coverage, alongside the tea diplomacy, photo opportunities and signed agreements.

The Trump visit, by contrast, was about stabilising a relationship Beijing sees as far more consequential and far more volatile, especially over trade, export controls and Taiwan, noted Ivanov from geopolitical risk consultancy GRASP.

In China’s readout, Xi and Trump agreed to build a relationship based on “constructive strategic stability”, a formulation Beijing said would guide ties over the next three years and beyond.

The US side focused more on concrete deliverables. Trump touted trade and business outcomes, while US officials said both leaders agreed the Strait of Hormuz should remain open and that Iran should not acquire nuclear weapons.

“GREAT-POWER THEATRE”

For Beijing, the two visits also carried a broader message: China can engage Washington at the highest level without loosening its strategic alignment with Moscow.

Ivanov said the Trump meeting was a “pretty serious consequential diplomatic affair”, aimed at taking heat out of tensions while presenting China and the US as equals.

But analysts said the logic behind the two visits differed sharply.

“Trump and Putin’s motives within their relations with Xi and Beijing are quite distinct,” Clarke said.

For Trump, the visit was driven mainly by trade and economic goals, wrapped in what Clarke called “great-power theatre” and symbolism - including formal red-carpet treatment, respect for presidential prestige and suggestions of a possible US-China “G2” channel.

For Putin, it was Russia’s need for diplomatic cover and access to Chinese markets and technology amid relative international isolation.

Ivanov said China’s relationship with the US remains “far more consequential and far more important”, even as Russia remains a critical strategic partner.

Russia is increasingly the smaller player in the triangle, he said, while the US-China relationship continues to shape the main contours of global politics and economics.

Putin’s visit, in that sense, was more routine for Beijing, Ivanov added, noting that the Russian leader is a frequent visitor to China.

This was Putin’s 25th visit to China since he first came to power in 2000, a period that includes his terms as both Russian president and prime minister.

His previous trip was in September last year, when he attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

But routine did not mean insignificance, said analysts.

For Moscow, the visit reaffirmed access to China’s markets and political support. For Beijing, it reinforced a partnership that helps diversify energy supplies and counterbalance US pressure.

The visits showed “whether by coincidence or design” that China has options and can maintain good relations with both Washington and Moscow, said Dylan Loh, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological University’s School of Social Sciences.

“They are not mutually exclusive,” he said.

G2, TRIANGULAR OR MULTIPOLAR ORDER?

Beyond Trump and Putin, a series of leaders - particularly from Europe - have also visited Beijing, creating the optics of multiple countries courting China, Loh added.

For Ivanov, the visits reinforced China’s image as a major power whose engagement is sought by rivals, partners and hedging states alike.

To Washington, the message was that Beijing has other strategic options; to Moscow, it was that Russia remains central to China’s wider diplomatic architecture, he said.

China and Russia also sought to put that message in broader ideological terms. In a joint statement released during Putin’s visit, both sides called for a more multipolar world order and criticised what they cast as unilateralism and bloc confrontation.

That language was in keeping with Beijing and Moscow’s long-running push to present themselves as defenders of a world order less dominated by the US and its allies.

Analysts asserted that Beijing does not want to be locked into a US-China “G2”, even if Trump appears drawn to leader-level bargaining between the world’s two largest economies.

“I do not think China places too much weight (on) the idea of a G2,” said Loh.

“Their declared policy has always been one of a multipolar order,” he added.

Li Yaqi, a research assistant specialising in international relations at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the picture is more complicated than a simple yes or no.

An institutional G2 - where the US and China coordinate global governance on issues such as financial stability, climate, pandemics and public goods - is “not what is emerging”, he said.

“Trump likes G2 language because it gives him dealmaking flexibility and personal control,” he said.

Beijing, however, rejects the term because it does not want to be seen as entering a great-power condominium with Washington, Li added.

That would risk creating expectations that China should share the burden of managing global order, while also unsettling the Global South.

What looks more plausible is a thinner, more transactional form of G2, built around leader-level bargaining, selective crisis management and limited restraint in some areas, Li said.

Ivanov said China is uncomfortable with the public framing of a G2 because its own strategic language is built around multipolarity.

In practice, however, Beijing is “quite comfortable” with having a more elevated status alongside the US than most other countries, he said.

“Russia is a minor player in this triangle,” Ivanov said. “It’s really the US and China relationship that shapes modern geopolitics.”

Jonathan Ping, an associate professor at Bond University in Australia, said the G2 framing remains more rhetoric than reality.

No formal arrangement of that kind is likely to emerge, he said, even if some de facto elements exist because the US and China are forced by their global weight and mutual dependence to manage crises bilaterally.

Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, said: “A lot will depend on what other major actors, such as the European Union, India, Japan, and others intend to do.”

If those actors cede agency, the prominence of Washington and Beijing could grow, Chong said. But the risk, he added, is greater fragmentation as both sides de-risk and decouple across trade, investment and technology.

In that sense, the back-to-back visits did not point neatly to a US-China duopoly.

Instead, analysts said, they showed Beijing trying to hold two tracks at once: managing the rivalry that matters most, while preserving the partnership that gives it room to manoeuvre.

As Chong put it, the US and China are “tremendously consequential”, but “they cannot direct the world either alone or in cooperation with each other - at least not yet”.