Source: Reuters
Wearing blue aprons, the leaders of Russia and China were filmed flipping Russian pancakes and consuming them with caviar and a shot of vodka in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.
Placing their historic rivalry on the back burner, they projected a united front amid pressure from Washington, which is fighting a trade war with China and leveling new sanctions on Russia.
“Both countries are trying to signal: If the United States pushes too far, we are going to move closer to each other,” Alexander Gabuev, chairman of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, told the Washington Post.
On Tuesday, Xi brought a delegation of almost 1,000 Chinese business people and officials to the Eastern Economic Forum, a Putin-led effort to lure foreign investors.