Why the West should worry about the end to the Putin and Xi summit

This visit may end up being seen as a unique, landmark, occasion: the point at which the global centre of gravity started seriously to shift from West to East, believes Mary Dejevsky

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping following talks in Moscow (Vladimir Astapkovich/Sputnik/AP) (AP)

This week’s Russia-China summit in Moscow was not unusual in itself. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have met many times more, and less, formally. They appear to have established an amicable and straight-talking relationship – their discussions were described by Putin at their closing press conference as “frank, open and friendly”.

Viewed through the longer lens of history, however, this visit may end up being seen as a unique, landmark, occasion: the point at which the global centre of gravity started seriously to shift from West to East.

It is a shift that the United States has long prepared for and dreaded. There was a wariness with which Washington, in particular, has looked on from a distance. There were, to a degree, three at this summit, even if the summiteers acted between themselves as though the United States was not there. The stage management may primarily have been for each other; but the size of the flags, the height of the doors and the length of the red carpets were all designed by Moscow to impress not just China, but to project the solidity of the Russian-Chinese relationship to the Western world.