The Putin-Xi meeting this week has captured the headlines, coming so soon after the Trump visit to Beijing. I think both leaders, Putin and Xi, were eager to signal a united front, and that the recent Trump meetings with both leaders (Trump prior in Anchorage) have not gotten in the way of their own relationship.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Putin, perhaps, is in a more uncomfortable position in that, prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow liked to think of the China-Russia relationship as a partnership of brothers, of equals. The harsh reality is that through Putin’s failed war in Ukraine, Russia has been weakened, and it is now increasingly the dependent partner in the Russia-China axis. Indeed, as Western sanctions have impacted Russia, it has become more dependent on China as a market for its energy and commodities and as a conduit to secure scarce imports. That said, for China it has not been charity, and, if anything, China has exploited Russian weakness by accepting cut-price Russian energy and commodities and charging Russia top dollar, or renminbi, for critical imports. Notably, then, Putin’s calling card in Beijing this week was a fresh effort to breathe new life into the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline project. This has been the Russian pitch doing the rounds for years now to build another pipeline to take gas (50 BCM plus) extracted in Western Russia, and previously destined for markets in Europe, now to Asia.