They visited a hockey rink in Beijing and the panda enclosure at the Moscow Zoo. They shared blinis layered with caviar in Russia and, reciprocally, the popular variant in China, jianbing. They have shared birthday cakes and exchanged toasts with shots of vodka, while demurring that neither would dare go overboard with the stuff.
For more than a decade, Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia have forged a respectful, perhaps even warm relationship, reflecting the deepening ties between two world powers that share common cause against U.S. military and economic might.