Putin, in China, Seeks to Reinforce Ties --- Russian president begins a high-profile trip in setback for U.S. effort to isolate him.

"BEIJING -- Inside the Great Hall of the People here last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) implored leader Xi Jinping to distance himself from Russian President Vladimir Putin, arguing that Putin, a pariah in the West, was holding back China's ambitions.

Instead of heeding that advice, China on Tuesday welcomed Putin to Beijing with open arms, in the Russian leader's first major visit abroad since the International Criminal Court accused him of committing war crimes in Ukraine.

Putin arrived in the Chinese capital by plane on Tuesday morning, with state-media footage showing him shaking hands warmly on the tarmac with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and receiving a red-carpet welcome from a military honor guard.

The U.S. has failed to break the ties between Moscow and Beijing, nearly 20 months into the Ukraine conflict.

Russia and China trade links are surging, for instance, with Chinese companies selling Russia many of the technologies it struggles to source from elsewhere because of U.S. sanctions, including semiconductors and industrial machinery. China, meanwhile, imports huge volumes of Russian oil and gas, purchases that help fill Moscow's financial coffers.

This week, Putin is in Beijing to lend his support to Xi's signature Belt and Road Initiative, which for the past decade has used railroads, ports and other projects to expand Chinese economic influence abroad. U.S. officials are skeptical of the Chinese initiative.

As the U.S. and China now pursue a delicate rapprochement in their own relations, with a potential summit being discussed between Xi and President Biden in California next month, Putin's visit to Beijing this week reinforces the resilience of the Russia-China partnership in the face of Western pressure despite their own strategic, ideological and historical frictions.

"Democracy is the common enemy" of Russia and China, said Guoguang Wu, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

The extraordinarily complex relations among Russia, China and the U.S. -- three nuclear-armed powers with a diffuse set of interests -- are now being further complicated by the war between Israel and Hamas.

While the U.S. has thrown its support behind Israel, Putin has blamed U.S. policy in the Middle East for the violence. China lamented the loss of civilian lives, although Foreign Minister Wang Yi has also already criticized Israel's response as going beyond the scope of self-defense.

When China rolled out the Belt and Road Initiative a decade ago, Xi promoted it as a benefit for developed and developing countries alike. Putin's presence at this year's summit, while many Western leaders stay home, highlights how the initiative has become increasingly fractured along geopolitical fault lines." [1]

The biggest result of events in Ukraine - improvement of ties between Russia and China. It changes the balance of military powers, politics, technology and economy.

1. World News: Putin, in China, Seeks to Reinforce Ties --- Russian president begins a high-profile trip in setback for U.S. effort to isolate him. Spegele, Brian; Areddy, James T.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 17 Oct 2023: A.7.