Putin-Xi Ties Deepen at the Beijing Summit

Recently, the world witnessed the apex of Chinese diplomacy when the Chinese leader Xi Jinping hosted the Russian President Vladimir Putin, merely two days after the US President Donald Trump visited Beijing. President Putin was welcomed by the Chinese leader with a guard of honor and gun salute at the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday. President Putin greeted his Chinese counterpart using a Chinese idiom, “One day apart feels like three autumns.” The leaders held a formal meeting on May 20th, 2026.

The significance of this summit was amplified due to its concurrence with the 25th anniversary of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation (2001), the agreement that institutionalized formal ties between Moscow and Beijing following decades of ideological conflicts, territorial rivalries, and mutual suspicion. Western aggressive policies, Trump’s trade war and sanctions, and an escalating rivalry between the West and East have pushed Russia and China closer in the past few decades. 

Putin-Xi Ties Against the Trump Administration’s Unilateralism

Both China and Russia have long encouraged peaceful global coexistence and articulated their concerns about the United States’ unilateral, aggressive, and interventionist policies in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and South America. During this recent summit between Putin and Xi, the two leaders signed 20 agreements on May 20, 2026. President Xi and Putin signed 40 documents and issued a 47-page joint statement. Through these developments, the two leaders signaled their intention to strengthen further their united front against the United States’ aggressive policies. President Xi, in the joint statement, warned against a global return to the “law of the jungle.” With this warning, the two sides once again condemned and criticized Washington’s unilateral aggression against its rivals and competitors.

Beijing and Moscow also rebuked Trump’s proposed Golden Dome defense system, a $175 bn missile defense project, intended to build a new missile field in the United States’ Midwest. This defense system will provide Washington with the capability to shoot down missiles in space. Nonetheless, this project risks triggering a new global space arms race between major world powers, imperiling international peace and security.

Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin also condemned the expiry of the US-Russia arms control deal, which was........

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