Wall Street Journal writes that Russia's relations with the West have deteriorated amid the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria and its economy has been battered by punitive sanctions and low oil prices. But the country is welcoming record numbers of Chinese visitors, who are taking advantage of a weak ruble, visa-free group travel, and the opportunity to retrace Communist history. Red tourism—visiting sites relevant to the Communist Party of China—has flourished under President Xi Jinping, at home and abroad. In June 2015, Russia and China formally agreed on opening up red-tourism routes, a deal signed in Shaoshan, the birthplace of Mao Zedong...More than 1.1 million Chinese tourists are expected to visit Russia this year, about 16% more than 2015, according to figures from market-research firm Euromonitor released in June. That puts Russia at No. 16 on the list of top destinations for Chinese tourists, behind the U.S. and France but ahead of the U.K.

Bloomberg writes that President Xi Jinping's elevation in status within the ruling party officially makes him China's most powerful leader in decades. Now he has to deliver.While formally becoming the Communist Party's "core" leader last week gave Xi a supremacy that eluded his predecessor, Hu Jintao, the status also more tightly tied his own fortunes to those of the country. More than ever, the worries of almost 1.4 billion Chinese -- including a slowing economy, severe pollution, soaring property prices and an increasingly complex international landscape -- rest on his shoulders alone."That's the trade off, if you want to have power," said Cheng Li, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Washington-based Brookings Institute. "With all the positions he holds, if things go wrong, he can't blame others."

The Washington Post reports that Philippine aerial surveillance showed Chinese coast guard ships were still guarding a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, but they did not harass and stop Filipinos from fishing there for the first time in years, the Philippine defense secretary said Sunday.The fishermen's return to Scarborough Shoal, which China effectively seized in 2012, was "a most welcome development" because it brings back their key source of livelihood, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said. China granted access to the tiny, uninhabited shoal 123 nautical miles (228 kilometers) from the northern Philippines after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte met with President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders this month. After his China trip, Duterte announced without elaborating that Filipinos may be able to return to the shoal soon. A Philippine navy plane spotted at least four Chinese coast guard ships around the shoal during a surveillance flight on Saturday, Lorenzana said, adding that an earlier report by the Philippine coast guard that the Chinese had left the area was incorrect.