- Red-carpet welcome in Tianjin marks rare four-day visit of Russian leader
- Summit seeks to counter Western influence, boost Russia under sanctions
TIANJIN: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in China’s northern port city of Tianjin on Sunday for a four-day visit to attend a regional security summit that Beijing hopes will serve as a counterweight to Western influence in global affairs, Chinese and Russian media reported.
Putin was accorded a red-carpet welcome, received at the airport by senior city officials, according to a livestream by Russia’s TASS news agency. The rare visit underlines what Chinese state broadcaster CCTV described as bilateral ties at their “best in ”history”—stable, mature, and strategically significant among major powers.
President Xi Jinping will host around 20 world leaders in Tianjin, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit — the largest gathering since the bloc was formed in 2001 by six Eurasian nations. The SCO has since expanded to 10 permanent members and 16 dialogue and observer states, broadening its mandate from security and counterterrorism to economic and military cooperation.
Xi is expected to use the summit to project an alternative to the U.S.-led global order while providing Moscow with a high-profile diplomatic platform as it grapples with Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.
On the eve of his visit, Putin lashed out at sanctions in a written interview with China’s Xinhua news agency, stressing that Moscow and Beijing jointly oppose “discriminatory” restrictions in global trade. Russia’s economy remains under severe strain, teetering near recession amid trade curbs and war costs.
Leaders from Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are also attending, with China keen to present the summit as a powerful display of “Global South” unity — rallying developing nations behind alternative power centers in world politics.
