Putin and Xi used the occasion of Putin being in Beijing to further cement their partnership:
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping vaulted their growing partnership into a forward-leaning pact avowedly aimed at the U.S., opposing America’s global network of alliances and seeking to nudge it aside as the sole superpower.
With Friday’s opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics and Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine as a backdrop, the two leaders conferred at a summit, struck deals on oil and gas and then pledged in a broad-ranging joint statement to provide new leadership at a time, it said, that power is shifting in the world.
Pointedly, in a break with the indirect pronouncements of past summits, their statement criticized the U.S. by name six times, taking issue with its alliances with Australia and others in Asia, and its arms-control and other policies. It also opposed any expansion by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—a central demand from Russia in its standoff with the West over Ukraine.