Should Trump Worry About the Putin-Xi Meeting?

Russian president Vladimir Putin left his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to journey to Beijing. The former’s destination: a forum on China’s infamous Belt and Road initiative, where Putin announced the approval of a toll road tying Belarus to Kazakhstan.The more important objective, though, for the Russian leader was meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping. The former lauded Belt and Road “an extremely important initiative” and said the two countries’ ties had reached “an unprecedentedly high level.”In fact, neither statement is true. The two governments haggled over Russian support for that single project for six years, and the road isn’t scheduled to be completed until 2024. If and when it actually opens is anyone’s guess. This suggests something other than “an extremely important initiative.”The bilateral relationship is better than at many points in the past, but it remains superficial. Last fall when the two leaders met, Putin announced: “We have established trust-based relations on the political, security and defense tracks.” That was similarly overstated since trust plays a minimal part of the China-Russia relationship.

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