Two high-stakes presidential visits, just days apart, is exactly the image Xi Jinping wants to project to the world: talking to everyone, tied to no-one. For China, these visits are proof that because of its massive economy and new-found diplomatic clout all roads now lead to Beijing. "The new era of world affairs is less centered around the West", says Samir Puri from Kings College London. "There is a lot of latent power that China has on the world stage, it's not necessarily using it in its most direct form to settle conflicts, instead China's style is to try to utilise its stature in a more gradual sense." The optics were strikingly similar - Xi confident in the spotlight as he played host. But the politics driving the two visits were very different. Putin, who has been to China more than 20 times, appears to have a close personal relationship with Xi. But the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions have left him leaning heavily on Beijing, which is now Russia's top trading partner and its biggest customer for oil and gas.

It has been an unequal partnership for some time now, and that was reinforced today. Talks ended with 20-plus agreements on trade and tech, but no approval yet for the stalled Russian gas pipeline that Putin has been pushing for years. A lengthy joint statement also yielded no major breakthroughs. "Both China and Russia need each other, but Russia clearly needs China more than before at the global stage", says Dr Zheng Runyu, from the Centre for Russian Studies at the East China Normal University in Shanghai. "Given today's international environment, deep co-operation with China is extremely important for Russia in dealing with many of its current challenges." (BBC)