Can friendship between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin really be pillar of China-Russia relations?
- Chinese leader ‘honoured’ by visit to St Petersburg, hometown of his counterpart
- Commentator says mutual appreciation may not be basis for power relationship
As Russia and China strengthened their cooperation in a number of areas this week, the ties between China’s President Xi Jinping and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin may have become a pillar of the relationship between what the US calls its “two major rivals”.
On the second day of Xi’s three-day state visit to Russia on Thursday, the leaders shared a cruise along the Neva River to St Petersburg, where Putin was born in 1952.
“I’m honoured to visit the hometown of President Putin,” Xi said, as quoted by China’s state-run news agency Xinhua on Thursday. “The fertile land here has bred a number of great people. It is the pride of Russia and its people.”
That day, Xi was awarded an honorary doctorate from St Petersburg State University, Putin’s alma mater. Putin, who in April received an honorary doctoral degree from Tsinghua University – where Xi studied chemical engineering – described the Chinese president as “an expert and an academic” for his leading role in the Belt and Road Initiative.
Xi is no stranger to such exchanges at diplomatic venues, as in 2014 when he attended Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday dinner and sent a telegram marking the birthday of Zimbabwe’s former dictator, Robert Mugabe.