A certain psychological subjection emerged when Putin, to pay Xi a compliment, told him to “envy a little” the success of China’s development. It is clear that it is above all the economic weight that determines the balance of power between the two unequal twins. The Chinese GDP is worth 18 trillion dollars, after a “disappointing” growth of 3% in 2022. The Russian one shrunk to less than 1,800 billion last year, between war and sanctions.
Putin exults as trade with China is about to reach 200 billion dollars: a large part of Russian exports are paid in yuan, which makes Moscow even more dependent on the majority shareholder. When he makes his calculations, Xi keeps in mind that relations between China and the United States are worth 690 billion dollars a year and those with the European Union 850 billion euros: in both cases, Beijing boasts a significant surplus. To summarize in simple terms: the oil and gas arriving from Siberia at discounted prices are important, but the Chinese economy must at least be anchored to the European shore. Thus, Xi and Putin are distant in economic accounts and in attention to the growth prospects of their nations.
The fact remains that the two met 40 times, they estimate each other, they call each other a “friend of the heart” (copyright Xi), «great old friend» (Putin’s word). The human relationship seems solid, carefully cultivated: the tsar makes warm greeting phone calls on every birthday, he showed up in China once carrying a large refrigerator full of ice creams that his fellow president is said to like very much, in a on another occasion he wanted to exaggerate by having a sauna made of three centuries-old Altai cedar wood delivered to Zhongnanhai (Xi’s headquarters next to the Forbidden City). The communist general secretary is more sober: he donated a portrait of Putin crocheted by the famous embroiderers of Suzhou.
They are two power marathon runners. Putin started with the advantage: he has governed the Russian Federation since 1999. Xi has been leading the Party-State since 2012. He has just entered his third five-year term, he has been careful not to designate a possible successor and if health will remain his friend it could be at the top again in 2033, at the age of 80.
They are two practicing sportsmen. And also their athletic passions describe the different ways. Putin does judo, karate, loves to be immortalized riding bare-chested, hunting, fishing. He individual activities and  «physical contact». Even the ice hockey in which he still performs is tough. The Chinese leader loves football, he dreamed of making China a power because he knows that football promotes soft power. The Chinese national team remains a Cinderella. Xi has more of a fan’s physique than a player’s, but there are photos that show him kicking the ball with power and beautiful style.
They say Xi is an expert in weiqi, strategic board game, very complex, tortuous and of patience, in which several objectives are pursued at the same time. There is no need for checkmate as in chess, which Putin likes; in weiqi the winner is the one who in the end has even the slightest advantage, which an inexperienced eye cannot grasp.
The biggest psychological difference between the two, according to political scientists, was dictated by the beginning of their careers. Putin began as a Soviet intelligence officer and experienced the decline and collapse of the USSR as a trauma. The young Party official Xi has served in a China that has always been on the rise since the 1980s, he experienced the transformation phase of the People’s Republic from Maoist pauperism to economic superpower. Moscow’s twin would like to return to the imperial past. The one in Beijing looks ahead, thinks in a very long time. Putin gambles, Xi is a wait-and-see.
“They may believe that the international order is unjust, even unreasonable.”said Zhao Long, deputy director of the China Institute for Global Governance Studies at Guancha.cn, a nationalist publication in Shanghai. “But their approach to the status quo is markedly different. China aims to reform in its favor, not destroy. It is obvious that Putin dreamed of a subversive refoundation of the system of world order.’