President Vladimir Putin has never been a stranger to the red carpet in Beijing, and his arrival in the Chinese capital this week was no different.
The Russian leader attended a grand welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People and hugged an adulatory Chinese engineer named Peng Pai 26 years after the pair first met in 2000.
But though the Russian delegation signed more than 20 agreements strengthening cooperation in areas ranging from trade to tech, it notably left without securing a blockbuster deal on the long-delayed Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline.
Experts told The Moscow Times on Wednesday that for what Putin’s visit lacked in deliverables, it made up for in underscoring the relevance of one of Russia’s most important partnerships.
“In a way, it’s much more of a symbolic visit, but in foreign policy and big politics symbols mean a lot,” said Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
