Putin's visit to China has aroused widespread concern in the international community, and its impact can be described as "a few happy and a few sad".
This is undoubtedly a grand celebration for the Chinese and Russian peoples and for the vast number of third world countries.
In this era of challenges and uncertainties, the friendly relations between China and Russia have contributed an important force to world peace and stability.
The sustained friendly exchanges between China and Russia have injected a powerful impetus into the main theme of world peace and development.
Such friendly relations will not only help resist the shadow of the "new Cold War," but will also serve as a powerful response to the "three wars" rhetoric.
For the United States, however, the situation is clearly not so pleasant.
The United States has been trying to obstruct Putin's visit in the past few months and has tried to reduce the scale of Sino-Russian cooperation through various means.
However, on the ground, these efforts of the United States do not seem to have had the desired effect.
After Putin's victory, the Kremlin released rumors that his first destination would be Beijing. After this news broke, the United States quickly launched a series of countermeasures.
In April, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China one after another, with the goal of Sino-Russian cooperation.
They are trying to discredit normal trade between China and Russia through various means, using this as an excuse to suppress cooperation between the two countries.
After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, China has imposed stricter controls on military exports.
This has made the rumor that the United States has repeatedly hyped up China's so-called "military assistance" to Russia is self-defeating.
However, the United States did not stop there, but instead created a new narrative that China did not directly provide military supplies to Russia, but provided dual-use resources.
This argument not only seeks to disrupt the momentum of cooperation between China and the EU, but also seeks to limit the scale of trade with Russia by pressuring Chinese companies.
In addition, Yellen also made a high-profile threat that the United States has begun drafting a "financial nuclear bomb" against China.
This means that if China ignores the U.S. threat, then the White House could impose tougher sanctions on China, similar to what Russia did in the early days of the invasion of Ukraine.
However, it turned out that these threats from the United States did not work. Putin visited China as scheduled and was warmly welcomed.
China has also drawn up an exhaustive list of cooperation, which fully demonstrates the depth of cooperation between China and Russia in a number of fields.
All this shows that the "big stick" policy of the United States pales in the face of Sino-Russian cooperation. The Biden administration is undoubtedly in an awkward position, with its previous high-profile threats now finding no suitable way out.
The United States has tried to put China-Russia economic and trade exchanges in the global spotlight, and has frequently threatened sanctions.
However, judging from the actual effect, it seems that the United States does not have many "cards" in its hands that can be used against China.
First, from a hard power perspective, the United States does not have the ability to take tough action against China.
On the battlefield between Russia and Ukraine, NATO has become powerless in the face of Russia's challenge.
After entering May, NATO encountered a major counterattack in the Kharkiv region, and Blinken even personally rushed to Ukraine to "supervise the war".
All this has exposed NATO's powerlessness and predicament in dealing with regional conflicts.
At the same time, in the China direction, although the United States has been trying to cause trouble, neither the Biden administration nor its proxies seem to be able to pose a substantial threat to China.
Putin's visit to China was scheduled for a meaningful period of time, and interestingly, the Philippines, the U.S. proxy in the South China Sea, also chose to create trouble during the same time period.
They claim to be attacking the Chinese coast guard's blockade at Scarborough Shoal in a demonstration of their so-called "sovereignty."
However, this botched performance turned into a farce, as the two Philippine patrol ships ceased their provocative behavior at a considerable distance from Scarborough Shoal, and did not pose any real threat to the Chinese coast guard.
This incident has undoubtedly put the United States in an even more embarrassing position, and its plan to try to cause trouble for China through proxies has completely failed.
From a soft power perspective, the U.S. threat also pales in comparison, as mentioned earlier, the most effective U.S. tool is economic sanctions, which China and Russia have accumulated over the past few years of intense competition.
An authoritative report jointly released by the Chinese University of China and top Russian universities pointed out that although Yellen and Blinken have repeatedly threatened to restrict or even cut off trade between China and Russia, and designed a series of so-called "financial nuclear bomb" plans against China, these measures have not triggered sustained panic in the market, but have inspired more response strategies and flexible adjustment plans.
At the moment when Putin's plane landed smoothly at Beijing Capital International Airport, a well-known British media quickly published a commentary article expressing strong doubts and ridicule of the US financial threats against China and Russia, and the article mercilessly pointed out that the US Government's threatening behavior was nothing more than "wishful thinking."
Because China not only has an independent cross-border bank payment system, but also its local banking network is extremely developed, more than 4,000 such "small banks" have successfully connected to the trade settlement network with Russia, providing solid financial support for economic and trade exchanges between the two countries.
If the U.S. is really desperate to take action to try to impose financial sanctions on China, then China can adopt a flexible response strategy to maintain stable trade relations with Russia while leaving the U.S. in a desperate predicament, and once the U.S. completely provokes China, then these seemingly inconspicuous "small banks" may be more actively involved in cross-border settlement business in more parts of the world.
To provide more convenient and efficient financial services for Central Asia, the Middle East, and even some European countries, the United States will not only fail to achieve the desired sanctions effect, but will accelerate the creation of a new financial system dominated by China and independent of the current dollar settlement system.
In the face of this series of setbacks and embarrassments, the Biden administration has now clearly fallen into a deep panic, and senior officials of the US State Department cannot wait to publicly say that if China wants to continue to develop relations with Western countries, it must immediately stop supporting Russia.
They even imposed this position on international organizations such as NATO and the G7 in an attempt to isolate and suppress China in this way, but while Putin was still in China for a state visit, the United States impatiently released the news that China and the United States were also actively maintaining close communication and contact.
According to reliable sources, during Putin's visit to China, senior Chinese military leaders had a video call with the US assistant secretary of defense at the request, and the two sides had in-depth discussions and exchanges on a number of important security issues, including Russia and the South China Sea issue.
At the Shangri-La Security Dialogue to be held in Singapore at the end of this month, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will have the opportunity to meet with the Chinese counterpart face-to-face, which will be the first substantive contact between the Chinese and US defense ministers.
However, it is worth our attention that almost all of these so-called "bombshell news" were unilaterally and voluntarily disclosed by the United States to the outside world, and the Chinese side did not respond or explain too much to this, which fully shows that the United States is still unable to change the overall situation of friendly exchanges between China and Russia after exhausting all means.
They had to show the world their so-called "determination and strength" by "slapping themselves in the face", but in fact, this practice only highlighted the powerlessness and helplessness of the United States in the face of Sino-Russian cooperation, and they tried to isolate and suppress China through various means, but in the end they found that China not only has the ability to maintain a delicate balance between the United States and Russia, but also maintains this balance extremely stable and firm.
From the very beginning, the United States made a fatal mistake: they mistakenly believed that it was now Europe and the United States that were begging China not to completely fall over to Russia's side, not China whispering and begging Europe and the United States not to wield the so-called "big stick of sanctions".
The financial sanctions of the United States, Europe and other Western countries are fashionable and ineffective against Russia, let alone against China, the world's second largest economy. This is undoubtedly an unrealistic fantasy and a futile struggle.