How did Putin's visit with Xi differ from Trump's? | ABC NEWS

追加: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Well, the leaders of China and Russia have toasted their strong partnership at a state visit in Beijing less than a week after the US President Donald Trump visited. Here to assist our understanding of the significance of these meetings is former Australian ambassador to Russia Paul Miler and he joins me now from Perth. Very good morning to you Paul. Thanks for your time.

[00:00:20]>> Morning Katherine.

[00:00:21]>> As the introduction suggested there, this meeting comes hot on the heels of the US president's visit to China. From the surface, the optics looked the same.

[00:00:29]The same fan fanfare, the same red carpets, the same amount of pomp and par and pageantry. But is that where the comparisons end?

[00:00:40]>> Look, yes. I mean, the protocol levels were were all pretty similar um uh equal. I think there are a few key differences. Um Xi couldn't trust President Trump with a joint press conference. Um with Putin, he was quite comfortable doing a joint press conference. Uh you know the level of agreement signed, we've seen uh 20 agreements uh signed in the presence of Xian Putin with another 20 odd uh announced. We haven't got a full list of them yet.

[00:01:12]They'll be relatively meaningless, but Donald Trump would have given anything to be signing 20 agreements. um you know regardless of how meaningless they they are. So there's there's clear differences um in the level of confidence they had with uh Putin staying on the rails, sticking within protocol and not doing anything to embarrass Xi.

[00:01:36]>> How would you characterize the relationship between China and Russia post meeting?

[00:01:43]Uh well, look, it continues on a on a trajectory that's been clear for a long time, particularly since uh Russia started its uh aggression against Ukraine in 2014. Um Russia is clearly now the little brother. China is the big brother. Um it's clear that Russia's economy is almost wholly dependent on China. Um and even through all the assertions of um uh renewed uh align or well renewed partnership I don't know if you if you need to issue a statement a joint statement on good neighborliness it feels to me like you've got some problems with good neighborliness and and we saw uh uh that that joint statement reference a whole lot of crossber facilitation efforts and uh address Chinese agricultures presence in the Russian Far East and other problems that that continue to um hobble that relationship.

[00:02:42]>> So if the ball now is in China's court and how it weighs up and balances its relationship with both Russia and the United States, how is it managing that that balancing act? Is is it leveraging the best of both worlds?

[00:02:58]>> Uh well, I think it definitely is. uh you know, China is of the view that it has uh well, Xi as a as a good Marxist Leninist is of the is of the view that the US is in terminal decline. Western capitalism is in terminal decline. Um he we he was using heavily uh in both visits uh this phrase around changes unseen in a century which is really around uh the demolition of the US-led global uh rules-based order and the reemergence of of China. And when he uses it with Donald Trump, direct to Donald Trump's face, it's it's it's sort of like a pretty clear uh assessment eye to eye that you are you are leading a country in decline. When he when he says it with um Putin, my sense is it's it's a lot more about keeping the pedal to the metal, keep going with disrupting uh the the international order. Um this is good for both of us. Um you know the reality is that uh that China China wants stability to a large extent but it doesn't mind Russia creating instability out outside.

[00:04:13]>> You mentioned Paul that you know up to 20 deals were done uh perhaps they were just for the headlines because the details are yet to emerge but there was one deal that wasn't done and that was that gas pipeline. How big a deal is that not going ahead?

[00:04:29]So this is really interesting and we the Siberia 2 pipeline has been on the on the horizon for a for a long time and and the Chinese have been right have been um uh negotiating pretty hard. They want the price in that of gas coming through that pipeline to be the Russian domestic subsidize price um which really um hobbles uh uh the the commerciality of it. Um but they're but they're very aware that that Putin and his circle have made a lot of money over the year around um uh around pipeline construction and and laying off the risk of pipeline construction to other countries. So China is is playing a hard bargain here but doing the right thing.

[00:05:14]Nothing was announced on on um Siberia 2 pipeline. Um what was interesting is Putin's um national security adviser Yurio Shakov said that something important on energy had been agreed. Um I get the sense that this might have been around uh Russia committing to um uh China that they would continue to supply crude oil. uh this is important given Iran Iranian supplies is not in the market but the but the quid proquo is that China will continue to supply uh refined products back to Russia given Ukraine's ongoing success in knocking out Russia's uh refining capacity