Are US tariffs pushing China and Russia together?

Call it “panda diplomacy.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Russia for a three-day visit and unveiled the loan of two carrot-munching giant pandas for the Moscow Zoo. It was a symbol, he said, of his growing “close personal friendship” with Vladimir Putin.

The charismatic and uniquely Chinese creatures are already wowing Muscovites, who have not had the chance to see a panda up close since Mao Zedong gave one to Nikita Khrushchev back in the 1950s, to cement a similar moment of intense rapprochement between the two Asian giants.

In those days, it was a shared belief in communism that drew them together. Though both remain authoritarian states,

Pushing China and Russia together?If Putin and Xi say it, it will be so