Putin goes to China: nuts & bolts

President Putin begins his state visit to China (May 16-17).

By now, Putin visited China 18 times, this will be his 19th trip.
⭐️ 4 official visits during the 1st & 2nd presidential terms (2000-2008);
⭐️ 2 visits to Shanghai for other international gatherings around the same time period;
⭐️ 12 times during his 2rd and 4th presidential terms (2012-2023).

To compare, all American presidents combined have visited China 14 times, including Obama 3 times during 8 years of his presidency, Trump - 1, Biden - 0.

Putin brings with him top policy-makers of economic, financial. energy and trade domains.

This includes:
⭐️ Deputy heads of the presidential administration Maksim Oreshkin and spokesman Dmitry Peskov;
⭐️ Six deputy prime ministers: First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, Deputy Prime Ministers Tatyana Golikova, Alexander Novak, Yury Trutnev, Dmitry Chernyshenko - they all head intergovernmental commissions from Russia end - as well as Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Savelyev. All of them will deliver reports;
⭐️ Central Bank Governor (Elvira Nabiullina), Finance Minister (Anton Siluanov), Economic Development Minister (Maksim Reshetnikov), head of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Yury Chikhanchin);
⭐️ Heads of economic agencies, heads of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (Dmitry Shugayev), Russian Railways (Oleg Belozerov), Rosatom (Alexey Likhachev) and Roscosmos (Yury Borisov).

On top of that a big cohort of bussiness folks:
⭐️ Rosneft board chairman Igor Sechin
⭐️ Co-chair of the Russian-Chinese Committee of Friendship, Peace and Development, Russian Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs' Rights Boris Titov
⭐️ Head of the Russian-Chinese Business Council and owner of Volga Group Gennady Timchenko
⭐️ Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Executive Board of Sber Herman Gref
⭐️ Oleg Deripaska, business tycoon
⭐️ Chief Executive Officer of Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev
⭐️ Chief Executive Officer of VTB Andrey Kostin
⭐️ Board chairmen of Rusnano (Sergey Kulikov) & Novatek (Leonid Mikhelson)
⭐️ Head of the Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) Association Alexey Repik
⭐️ President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin
⭐️ Chairman of VEB.RF Igor Shuvalov.