May 18, Kathmandu - Just a week after U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to China, Russian President Vladimir Putin is also scheduled to travel to Beijing.

Putin is set to visit China on Tuesday, coinciding with the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the strategic partnership between China and Russia. Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted that the cooperation between the two nations continues to deepen and strengthen.

China claims that Putin's upcoming visit, shortly after Trump's trip, has placed China at the center of global diplomacy. 

"Such continuous visits have attracted widespread attention. According to analysts, it is extremely rare in the post-Cold War era for one country to host leaders of both the United States and Russia in the same week," state-run English newspaper Global Times reported on Monday.

China's increasingly close relationship with Russia, especially since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, has become a concern for Western countries. Western diplomats and analysts note that China's economic and diplomatic support to Russia has helped sustain the conflict.

According to The Guardian, a British magazine, China has held over 40 meetings with Putin, surpassing the number of meetings Xi Jinping has had with Western leaders.

Since 2022, bilateral trade between China and Russia has reached record levels, with China purchasing over one-quarter of Russia's total exports. China's significant imports of Russian crude oil have provided Putin with billions of dollars to sustain the Ukraine war.

Last week, discussions between Trump and Xi Jinping indicated that the Ukraine conflict and China-Russia relations were not top priorities. A Chinese official statement on the main bilateral meeting made only a brief reference to the "Ukraine crisis," while the U.S. statement did not mention it at all. Instead, the talks focused primarily on trade, Taiwan, and conflicts in the Middle East.