Why Xi met Putin days after hosting Trump

Key points

• Just four days after rolling out the red carpet for US President Donald Trump in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping is hosting another global heavyweight, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• Xi's Russian counterpart landed in Beijing on Tuesday.
• Putin met Xi Jinping and signed more than 20 agreements on trade and technology, as well as a declaration on a "multipolar world order".
• Putin hailed the "strong and positive" momentum in cooperation between Russia and China.
• Xi lauded the "unyielding relationship" between the two countries days after he said "the US and China should be partners, not rivals." Beijing's back-to-back high-level hostings of the leaders of the world's two biggest geopolitical rivals signals China's centrality in global power politics.