Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping hold talks at Xi’s Zhongnanhai residence, in Beijing, China, 2 September 2025. Photo:. EPA/ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN

Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks in Beijing on Tuesday, on the eve of China’s largest ever military parade, which will mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s unconditional surrender at the end of World War II.

Calling Xi his “dear friend” and buoyed by his delegation signing dozens of trade agreements with China, including one long-sought by the Kremlin to build a new gas pipeline connecting Russia’s Siberian gas fields to markets in China, Putin described Sino-Russian relations as being “at an unprecedentedly high level”, the BBC reported.

In return, Xi told Putin that the ties between their countries had “withstood the test of international changes” and expressed Beijing’s willingness to partner with Moscow to “promote the construction of a more just and reasonable global governance system”.

The bilateral meeting between the two leaders came a day after the end of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin, which was also attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on his first visit to China in seven years.

Both Xi and Putin have gained significant diplomatic stature from the Russian dictator’s four-day visit to China, with Putin’s numerous bilateral meetings with other world leaders on the sidelines of the SCO summit heralding an end to his years of isolation over the invasion of Ukraine, which was barely mentioned.

Meanwhile, Putin’s presence at the Beijing military parade, alongside that of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the dictator of another Chinese vassal state, will bolster Xi’s image, not only as the leader of the world’s second largest economy, but also as a statesman wielding great international influence.