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War funds
Vladimir Putin is seeking to reverse a decline in trade with China, which is crucial to his war, three Russian sources told Reuters.
China bailed out Russia after Western sanctions, taking bilateral trade to a record $245 billion in 2024, but it has since fallen by 8.1% from January to July.
China accounts for the bulk of Russia's export revenue, one source said, and technology supplied by Beijing has been important to the Russian military.
"Without them, we wouldn't have been able to produce a single missile, let alone a drone, and the entire economy would have collapsed long ago," the person said.
Diplomatic encouragement
Putin's visit gives him a high-profile diplomatic boost, despite Western sanctions and an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for him.
The Russian president will be among more than 26 world leaders, including China's President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A day before his visit, Putin sharply criticized Western sanctions in an interview with the Chinese news agency Xinhua, saying that Moscow and Beijing jointly opposed the "discriminatory" sanctions.
Xi and Putin have met many times and signed a "borderless" strategic partnership in February 2022, just weeks before Putin sent his army into Ukraine.
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