1) If you know the Chinese political culture, you will pick up 2 important pieces of details:
- Putin and Xi walk out in front of other “Belt and Road” leaders;
- the way the military guards opening the door follows the ritual similar to Putin’s honor guards.

2) Russian honor guards opening the door for Putin.

3) the significance of these symbolic choices is often missed by western observers especially those insisting that Russia has already degraded to be China’s junior partner.
If their logic holds, Holy See has long been a junior partner of the archbishop overseeing Roma Dioceses.