What's Xi doing in Moscow?

Vladimir Putin is hosting world leaders in Moscow for WWII victory celebrations today. 

Why does this matter?

• As Putin’s war continues to warp Russia’s economy and wreck a generation, he needs to project strength and solidarity for audiences at home and abroad, and

• Today’s pageantry also helps Putin link Russia’s sacred WWII struggle against an actual Nazi invasion, with his ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

But there are a couple other signals on display.

One inadvertent signal is the fact that this annual military parade is now less than half its pre-war size, reflecting the degree to which all Putin’s chips really are now in Ukraine.

But the bigger signal is up in the stands: China’s Xi Jinping is one of 20 or so world leaders there today (like Brazil’s Lula, Egypt’s El-Sisi). They’ll each have their own reasons, whether seeking to a) bolster their domestic legitimacy by sitting with the big dogs, and/or b) projecting themselves abroad as real players on a multipolar stage.

But what really matters — and what might shape the next century — is why Xi is there:

• Xi and Putin signed several cooperation agreements, though this is standard for a Xi visit (and details remain scant), but more importantly…

• Xi’s own op-ed in a Russian paper said the quiet bit out-loud — “We must leverage the certainty and resilience of our partnership of strategic coordination to jointly accelerate the shift toward a multipolar world.”

Translation: he now sees a historic opportunity (with Russia) to push harder and more quickly towards a post-US-led world.

So turning up to today’s parade is a way to signal this not only to Putin and others hoping to curb US influence, but also to the US itself, just as the two start talks in Switzerland.