As my colleague Adam Garrie has rightly written, the meetings yesterday and today in Moscow between Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia are far more important than any of the other bilateral meetings which will be taking place this week during the G20 summit in Hamburg.
Unfortunately, that includes the ill-starred meeting between President Putin and President Trump.
This is the 21st meeting between Presidents Xi and Putin since President Xi became China’s leader when he was elected General Secretary of China’s Communist Party in November 2012 and became China’s President in March 2013.
I do not think that there has ever in history been such intense interaction between two leaders of two Great Powers. Moreover, we see only the tip of the iceberg. As I have discussed previously, the Kremlin website never publishes details of President Putin’s telephone conversations with President Xi, though it is a certainty that they happen regularly. Given the intensity of their other interactions, I would not be surprised if they speak at least once a month. Probably there is a regular schedule for their calls.
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The key point about President Xi’s and President Putin’s latest meeting is that over and above the various economic agreements, they are clearly coordinating their positions in advance of what is likely to be a difficult G20 summit for them both.
President Xi will be looking for President Putin’s support in his almost certainly fraught conversations with President Trump on the North Korean issue. It is known that Trump and Xi had what appears to have been a difficult telephone conversation a few days ago, during which Xi warned Trump of the ongoing deterioration of their relations….