Hawk’s Sunday Brief: Putin’s Beijing optics after Trump; the ‘staged’ narrative problem; Europe’s voice and China’s two‑wheelers

Vladimir Putin will visit Xi Jinping in China just days after Donald Trump’s high‑profile trip to Beijing — a tight diplomatic cadence that underscores how Beijing is positioning itself as a central stage for U.S.–China–Russia signaling in a moment of war and energy tension [1]. Information disorder watch: CNN’s Michael Smerconish digs into why so…