Why Putin and Trump are queuing up to visit China

0:01Sky News, the full story first.

0:13Vladimir Putin has arrived in China for a state visit just days after Donald Trump. And this is why.

0:35We're on it before it breaks. We take you straight into the rooms where the real political conversations are happening. Smart Insight, clear analysis in your feeds by 7.45am. So you start your morning fully brief for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to Politics at Sam & Anne's wherever you get your podcasts.

1:04Hi everyone, Neil here and isn't it nice to be popular because Chinese President Xi Jinping is certainly that right now

1:16Vladimir Putin has arrived in Beijing for a summit with all the pomp and circumstance and flag-waving wee kiddies that you'd expect. Now, if you are having a sense of déjà vu, don't worry. Donald Trump was there less than a week ago, again to meet Xi, a man he described as a great leader. Trump headed back to the States after his second state visit to China with, well, pretty much nothing to show for it. Putin is on trip number 25 to Beijing. And guess who shares his desire to reshape the world? The real crux of what, I guess, motivates their relationship is this shared belief that that global order should be shifted and that it should look further east.

1:57And certainly China increasingly feeling that it should be at the head of that new global order.

2:06Helen Ann Smith is Sky's Asia correspondent based in Beijing. Helen Ann, just tell us about this summit. A lot going on, apparently. Yeah, really, really busy. I mean, look, firstly, I should say that it's not as if Xi Jinping doesn't hold leaders here pretty often. So some of the staging in the ceremony follows a relatively well-worn playbook, if you like. But my goodness, they have crammed it in today. Busier and fuller is the agenda than I think any sort of diplomatic visit here that I've seen for absolutely ages. This morning, he arrives at Tiananmen Square at the Great Hall of the People, this huge ceremonial building.

2:43It's kind of China's equivalent of Parliament. It's where the big meetings happen. And he is given the full ceremonial welcome. There's different sort of gradations of that, depending on how important you are as a leader, frankly. But he was given the top version. So full honour guard, troop inspection, national anthems, gun salute, cheering children. They then had a big signing ceremony. Xi Jinping and Putin then did a statement to the press, which is pretty unusual, certainly from China's side. When I say statement to the press, I mean, they read pre-scripted remarks and nobody asked them any questions.

3:16But nonetheless, even that staging is quite unusual. And even in the margins of that crammed itinerary, we were sitting here back at base watching the feed of the pictures coming in. And there was this event taking place we couldn't quite work out. There's the Russian president standing in this fairly nondescript room with a Chinese man whose face I didn't recognise at all. But apparently there's quite a heartwarming story behind this encounter. Yeah, a really heartwarming story. It's a gentleman who's now an engineer. And it turns out that this guy met President Putin in the early 2000s when he was a child, when Putin was on one of his very first visits to China.

3:53This is his 25th, it's worth adding. And this guy basically said that he was so inspired by this childhood meeting with a young Vladimir Putin that he decided he was going to go and study in Russia, which he then did. Went and studied engineering in Russia, now speaks fluent Russian. He's now in his late 30s, married with kids. He made a quip in the press here that his job is to build physical bridges and he wants to also build metaphorical bridges between Russia and China. So I think quite a nice little demonstration of the interpersonal relations that they're really trying to sort of ham up here, I think.

4:27Yeah, none of which is to say that this isn't a very substantive meeting. 20 signed agreements, we understand. You know, everything from trade to education, science and technology, energy, innovation, media, all these different sectors. There was a signing ceremony, as we saw, and all these different sectors coming and signing their various agreements. But there was one that Xi and Putin signed themselves, which I think is particularly worth pointing to. So they signed what is being catchily named a joint declaration on the establishment of a multipolar world and a new type of international relations.

4:59Now, that sounds a little bit lofty, but I think that's quite interesting because there's been a lot of reference to the fact that they both see this partnership as a very stabilising force within a sort of a changing global world. And I think that's really important because, of course, what really unites these two over and above the trade and shared interests and whatever is they both see the global order as just being too Western leaning and have for a long time. And the real crux of what I guess motivates their relationship is this shared belief that that global order should be shifted and that it should look further east.

5:36And certainly China increasingly feeling that it should be at the head of that new global order. So what ultimately then does Xi want from Putin and vice versa? I mean, on the face of it, at least, it looks like Russia needs China a lot more than the other way around. Yeah, it's not just on the face of it. That is the reality, Neil, 100 percent. Russia needs this relationship far, far more than China does. And there is a deep imbalance in the relationship. And that was the case before the war in Ukraine. But it is absolutely the case now. We are talking about China's economy is eight times the size of Russia's.

6:08China is by far Russia's biggest trading partner. It buys well over a third of both its imports and its exports. But for China, Russia only makes up 4 % of its trade, only 4%. And obviously, since Russia undertook that full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2021, that reliance has only increased. The Russian economy, frankly, could have faced collapse were it not for the fact that China continued to buy its goods and most importantly, its energy. So China has given Russia enormous financial backing in that sense, that sort of China disregarding international sanctions and continuing to do business.

6:46China has always said it's neutral in the war, but it absolutely supplies Russia with dual use items that have been really, really useful in its military campaign, particularly things like drone components, very, very important. And also China has given Russia absolutely crucial diplomatic cover over these years. So, you know, Putin, remember, has an international arrest warrant on his head. But China provides these diplomatic forums whereby he can continue to at least keep up the appearance of travelling the world and meeting with dignitaries. He's able to come to the BRICS summit, which is a coalition around Russia and China and India and South Africa and so on.

7:22But in return, China does see Russia as a stable source of oil and energy, for sure. And that need for stability has obviously been only heightened since the war in Iran and the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. They like and they want to have certain military intel from the Russians. There are certain military things that Russia is good at. China is very happy to have some of that information, some of that expertise. But crucially for China, I think the biggest thing that they want the Russians for is just a strong and strategic partner in this sort of global narrative and global push to sort of shift and reorient the global order because Russia is so in China's pocket that China has such leverage over it and that gives it real power.

8:07Xi Jinping, he's been quite a busy man recently. It was only five minutes ago that he had President Trump turning up on his doorstep for another summit. Just for a second, Helena, just compare and contrast. Are there material differences between the reception that Trump had and the reception that Putin is currently receiving? The Trump summit, of course, was meant to be all the way back in late March, early April, and it was delayed because of the war in Iran. So this literal back to back is sort of an accident. So they were encouraging us not to make comparisons, but it's almost impossible not to, isn't it?

8:36Look, China doesn't do anything by accident. China thinks very carefully about staging and protocol. So in terms of just the staging and the ceremony, it was almost exactly equal. And I think that was probably important and intentional. But when you take away from the staging, just the interpersonal warmth between them, the wording of the opening statements, just the crammed nature of the agenda. I think all of this speaks to a relationship that is actually just on far, far better footing. And I think that's been quite obvious. I mean, the images of Xi and Trump from last week, some of it was very awkward.

9:14Just the physical stiffness of them when they were walking around the Temple of Heaven. There was a really funny moment, I thought, on day two of the Trump summit where Xi Jinping took Donald Trump on a walk around the gardens of Zhongnamhai. Now, Zhongnamhai is the compound in the centre of Beijing that Xi Jinping lives. It's very secretive. Very few leaders get to go in there. Very few people have ever seen inside it. And they're walking around and Trump says to Xi Jinping, so do you invite other leaders here often? You know, is this a bit of a privilege, essentially? And Xi turns around and says, no, I rarely host leaders here, but Putin's been here.

9:49So, you know, that tells you everything you need to know, that he just sort of drops it in there. And look, I think there is no denying or debating who Xi Jinping prefers. He's a very inscrutable man. It's often hard to read. But he's been smiling today and I didn't see him smiling that much last week. Even though on the substance, I mean, of course, Donald Trump's visits are always going to generate plenty of headlines. But he didn't get a deal on Iran. He didn't get any action on AI. Arguably, he handed Taiwan to China on a plate. I mean, Putin's leaving when he does leave with far, far more than his back pocket.

10:22Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And the Trump visit was so rich in optics and really light in detail. Actually, very interestingly, just today, China's commerce ministry have actually released a statement summarising some of the achievements from the Trump visit. Perhaps they actually actively chose to do that today just to exactly avoid the type of comparison that we're just about to make. But there wasn't that much in there. There was an agreement to keep talking about tariffs. There was an agreement for China to buy 200 Boeing aircraft, even that significantly fewer than the Americans had been hoping for.

10:56There was an agreement to set up a board of trade and a board of investment. So lots of agreements to keep talking about things, not much actual deals. And I think it is important to say, look, it's not as if these two relationships were coming to these summits from the same place. Of course they weren't. America and China were coming to this summit from a period of really unprecedented instability. And there was a lot of work to do to just steady the ship. And actually, you could argue that even just the fact that Donald Trump was here was stabilising. It's unlikely they were ever going to sit down and reach this raft of agreements.

11:31but I think it absolutely shines a light on the fact that the US-China relationship is one that needs to be essentially managed competition and the Russia-China relationship for all of its imbalance and my goodness there is a lot and China will use that to its advantage but it is a relationship that does have degrees of trust in there. Look Helena even if we accept that the timing of the Putin visit is entirely coincidentally just the week after Donald Trump pitched up personally I'm a little bit sceptical. You could have stuck a few more buffer days in there if you really wanted to. It looks great for the Chinese, doesn't it?

12:06There's almost a feeling kind of courting the emperor that Xi Jinping sits in his palace and or here comes the president of the United States coming to ask for his help. Or look, here comes the president of Russia coming to bolster the relationship. I mean, the optics, they're brilliant for Xi. That's absolutely right. And it's not just this last two weeks with the president of Russia and the president of the United States coming here. It's been the case all year. There has just been a parade of foreign leaders here to China, from the Germans, the French, Keir Starmer from the UK, the King of Spain has been here.

12:39And then let alone all the leaders from the global South and Africa and Southeast Asia who are here relatively regularly. As I say, I live here and Xi Jinping is almost always hosting someone. Remember, at the crux of everything that China is about and that China aims for and works towards is this image, and they hope the reality, that China should and could be considered the grown-up superpower in the room, the new global leader, that the world should look to it for stability and global leadership. And frankly, you could argue that it's playing its hand unbelievably well at the moment. It does look like the stable power at the moment, doesn't it?

13:19It does look like the slightly more predictable partner if you're a Southeast Asian nation and you want to do trade with someone who's not going to slap tariffs on you suddenly. So is that what all of this is all about? Is that ultimately Xi's overriding strategy, that there is a restructuring of the global world order? And in circumstances in which you have Donald Trump in the White House, well, where else does the rest of the world turn? I think China has long felt that the balance of power in the world is unfair. it has often pointed to what it calls hegemony. And when it talks about hegemony, it is talking about the United States essentially just doing what it wants and when it wants.

13:57And frankly, Donald Trump in the White House has just put so much fuel to the fire of those accusations. And there are so many countries, particularly in Asia and the global South, who are now looking to China. Countries, for instance, who had USAID pulled from under them. Countries who really rely eye on trade with the United States who are slapped with enormously high tariffs. And China quietly has started to step in funding some of those US AID projects that the US has pulled out of. China has been reaching out to countries like Cambodia and Thailand and Vietnam, who have really struggled with tariffs and said, don't worry, and it will be there.

14:35And if you like, Russia is only one small part of it. Really, this is the game of China coming out on top.

14:53Russia, China. I mean, there may well have been a longstanding personal relationship between the Russian Premier and the Chinese Premier, but these two countries were not always allies. That's absolutely right. We sort of think now, because of the good relations between these two, and just in this summit today, they've been talking about unprecedented levels of US-China relations. But these are not two nations that have historic levels of trust. They share a long border. There has been a long history of acrimony along that border over many hundreds of years, and they don't instinctively trust each other.

15:27And I think that's really important, particularly from China's side. we've always got to remember the way that China handles its international relationships. It is always pragmatic and is always strategic and it will always lean into its relationships, but only insofar as it suits them. So China will do deals with the Russians. It will use the Russians insofar as it needs them. But do they truly, truly trust the Russians? I'm not so sure about that. I just want to give you one example, Neil. When Russia invaded Ukraine back in 2021, Just two days before that invasion, Xi Jinping and Putin sat down ahead of the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics and they'd signed what they called at the time a no limits partnership.

16:11Then the invasion of Ukraine happened and the Chinese were absolutely silent for days after that. Everybody thought the Chinese must have known in advance. And actually, a lot of analysts truly believe and those close to the Chinese government at that time believe that Chinese were actually really blindsided by that invasion. and actually didn't really like it. And there's lots of people who say that, although China has, of course, been helping Russia to a degree, if China really wanted Russia to sweep to victory, it could just make that happen. And it has chosen not to. And I think there's a degree to that, that China doesn't want to see a massively over-empowered Russia because a massively over-empowered Russia is actually a danger to it as well.

16:56But in terms of this strategy of trying to portray China as the kind of the adult in the room when it comes to the global major powers. I mean, how much of that is truth and how much of that is a facade? Yes, they're stable. Yes, they're pragmatic. All the rest of it. But, you know, this is a country that still has designs on Taiwan and has a litany of human rights abuses as langs my arm. Yeah, and actually some of the hypocrisies were just so on show today, I think. One of the statements that Xi and Putin were sort of making to each other in some of their opening remarks was that they as powers of working together towards global peace and security.

17:30And you think, really? The country that unilaterally invaded a neighbour? And yeah, it's important to point out Taiwan because remember, if China's number one objective is to be the ascendant superpower in the world, its number two objective is to take over Taiwan. So when Donald Trump launches an attack of Iran, China sees it through the lens of how might this harm or potentially help a future invasion of Taiwan for us. They don't want to see the Iranians too weakened. They want their oil. They want their influence in the region. But they don't mind one bit the US being distracted and depleted elsewhere.

18:04It means the Chinese can focus on what they want. They don't mind one bit if US public opinion is worn down and they lose their appetite for international intervention. And crucially as well, they might say in public that they criticise the breaking of international law when it comes to some of Donald Trump's adventures. But actually, it potentially gives them a little bit of license when they might skirt close to international law on some of their plans in the future. So take everything I think that China says with a pinch of salt. However, I do want to just make one counterbalance point to that.

18:36And that is that I do think China wants to be seen as responsible and stable more than the Russians do. I don't think they are the same as Russia. I think they have looked at what's happened in Ukraine and learned lessons from that. I do think they value their position on the international stage more than the Russians did. And I do think it is important to them. For all this talk of a multipolar world, America withdrawing somewhat, China trying to expand its sphere of influence. I don't like to be parochial, but it is my podcast. I mean, what does all this mean for the UK? Let's put it this way.

19:07Keir Starmer was here in Beijing himself earlier this year. And to say that the welcome he was given was a shadow of what Donald Trump and Putin have been given is an understatement. He did not get the honour guard. There was no Tiananmen Square banned. It really was run of the mill compared to what Donald Trump and President Putin have experienced. And I think that says a lot about the UK's position, certainly in terms of how China sees it. I think in the sort of great power play in politics, I don't think any of them consider the UK to be an enormously big or important player, certainly not here in China.

19:46China might see the UK as one of the European powers that really likes to put pressure on them vis-a-vis Ukraine. It's worth saying there are certain things that the UK has that China really values. It really values the information economy. So universities and intellectual property and science and chemical research, things like that, are considered very valuable by the Chinese. But it is just not considered to be the gravitational player that perhaps it once was. Elena, always fascinating to talk to you. Thanks for your time. Thanks. It's always good to be on. If you want to hear more about how China is benefiting from the war in Ukraine, you might want to have a listen to our sister podcast, The World.

20:25This week, it's taking a look at how Chinese drones bought by Russia are fighting other Chinese drones bought by Ukraine. They've been discussing Chinese capabilities with the security expert, Phillips O 'Brien, who says we might not be far off robots replacing soldiers on the front lines. So if you want to hear about that, head over to the world. That's your lot from us. We're back again tomorrow.

20:54I'm Sam Coates from Sky News. And I'm Anne McElvoy from Politico. Downing Street drama, leadership battles and policy U-turns. We're on it before it breaks. We take you straight into the rooms where the real political conversations are happening. Smart Insight, clear analysis in your feeds by 7.45am. So you start your morning fully brief for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to politics at Sam and Anne's wherever you get your podcasts.