Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.

Vladimir Putin has been providing Xi Jinping with occasional morsels of information to keep China on Russia's side. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Getty Images and Reuters)
Meant to keep China on Russia's side, the words in March prompted Beijing to hedge its bets