Putin and Xi to Talk Over How 2022 Panned Out for Russia and China

President Vladimir Putin and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will hold bilateral talks later this month, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported on Tuesday.

The meeting is set to review what has been a turbulent 2022 for Putin, whose protracted war in Ukraine, now in its 10th month, has isolated Russia from half the global economy and undermined Moscow's standing in multilateral forums like the United Nations.

For Xi, the year has been no less transformative. China's president secured a norm-breaking third term as leader of the long-ruling Communist Party in October and earlier this month abruptly rolled back his zero-tolerance public health policy three years into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Their talks, which the newspaper said were unlikely to be in person, would follow a similar summary discussion one year ago. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesperson, said at a briefing later the same day that an announcement would come "in a timely manner."

Xi is perhaps Putin's last high-profile ally on the international stage. The pair have met face-to-face twice this year—once in Beijing three weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, and again during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's leaders summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in September.

In the interim, the two men have held a number of phone calls to reaffirm mutual geopolitical interests including share grievances against the West in general and the United States in particular.

Xi's reelection means Putin can expect a certain degree of predictability from his opposite number in Beijing, who experts believe is driving the deepening alignment with Moscow.

In what was only his second overseas trip in nearly three years, Xi sought to reassert China's global leadership credentials when he rubbed elbows with Western leaders like Joe Biden at last month's G20 summit in Bali. Putin skipped the event as attendees including Xi distanced themselves from his nuclear saber-rattling.

But if this year's bilateral agendas are anything to go by, Putin and Xi are expected to signal in no uncertain terms that their geostrategic partnership is not for turning, despite any perceived differences in their respective diplomatic positions.

Further coordination on trade, energy and votes at the U.N. Security Council are likely topics, as are support for each other's core interests—Ukraine and Taiwan.

"Both countries are keen to prevent the U.S. from being the dominant power in Europe and Asia, respectively," Rana Mitter, a professor of Chinese politics at Oxford University, told Newsweek. "Although China and Russia disagree on key areas, including the use of nuclear weapons, they are likely to remain close."

Despite significant pressure from the West, Beijing has successfully navigated the year without openly condemning Moscow for its military campaign against Kyiv.

"China is being very careful not to do anything to criticize Russia, even though, as far as we know, they're not supplying weapons to Russia and they're abiding by Western sanctions, because, obviously, their economic interests are much greater with Europe, the United States and Asia than they are with Russia," said Angela Stent, professor emeritus at Georgetown University and senior adviser to its Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies.

"The determination to combat Western attempts to democratize the world—what they see as imposing a system on them that they reject—is a very strong motivation for them to stick together," she told Newsweek.

"There's an ideological affinity to make the world safe for authoritarianism and to push back against what they see as Western attempts to interfere in their domestic systems and keep themselves in power," Stent said.

The neighbors aren't without their past differences, but the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, an event that paved the way for the normalization of ties between China and the West in Cold War, is unlikely to repeat itself any time soon.

Yet uncertainties in the relationship remain. The Russian economy's increasing reliance on the Chinese market may have unpredictable implications for Moscow's political sway in Beijing, and could further undermine any authority it had left in its historical sphere of influence in Central Asia.

"Moscow has little to offer Beijing except energy and geopolitical support. However, unless Moscow ends its war in Ukraine and rebuilds its international standing, it is not in a good position to exercise influence separate from Beijing," Mitter said.

For the time being, however, Putin's longevity in the Kremlin benefits Beijing, too, according to Stent.

"In the longer run, Russia may have goals that are not necessarily compatible with China's," she said. "But I see this relationship very much determined by the relationship between Xi and Putin. I don't think the Chinese leadership wants, for instance, Russia to lose the war in Ukraine, or at least they don't want Putin to be removed from power."

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