What will China want to talk about during Vladimir Putin’s state visit?

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to China is part of the great power politics currently being played out between the West and the global south. In this arena, China’s President Xi Jinping is promoting his multipolar view of the world, a realignment of the world’s geopolitical centre away from the US and Europe, to Asia. Xi sees China front and centre on the stage, with a coterie of countries to back him up. China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are at one end of the spectrum, but widen out the view and there is also Brazil, India and South Africa,…