Vladimir Putin drapes China’s First Lady Peng Liyuan in shawl at APEC event

At an APEC event to watch the fireworks in Beijing on Monday night, Russian President Vladimir Putin created a few of his own by slipping a shawl over the shoulders of China’s First Lady Peng Liyuan.

A smiling Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, accepted the offer, but removed the shawl only seconds later, replacing it with her own black jacket.

It was a fleeting moment but captured on live television and China’s internet users went wild for the gesture, posting the GIF image on their Weibo accounts.

Perhaps after seeing how the forums pounced on the moment, state TV stopped running that scene and there is no mention of it official state media.

But on Weibo and WeChat it is clearly what is making people talk and there has been little censorship so far.

This served as a reminder to China’s Weibo users that Russia’s “gallant” president had form. He once covered German Chancellor Merkel with a shawl at a previous G20 summit.