Much has changed since Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin last appeared together atop Tiananmen Square in 2015. When they did so again this week, it was assumed they were equal partners. But, of course, the reality is much more complex.
It is commonly believed that China has solidified its position as a dominant partner, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After all, China is now Russia’s largest trading partner, accounting for more than half of Russia’s imports in 2023, while Russia is not even among China’s top five partners. While Russia depends on China to purchase roughly half of its crude oil exports, those purchases account for only 17,5% of China’s total oil imports. Simply put, Russia needs China to sustain its economy.
Yet despite this dependence, China does not dictate the outcome, and the Kremlin does not behave like a junior partner. Take the war in Ukraine. While it has significant advantages for China — not least in diverting American resources away from the Pacific theater — there is no doubt that Putin dictates the pace, scope, and ultimate goals.
On paper, China may have leverage to influence Russian policy. But it is hard to imagine a scenario in which Ukraine could force China to use it. That would jeopardize China’s relations with a key partner, and would also run counter to its fundamental foreign policy principle of “non-intervention.” Putin knows this better than anyone.
Although China consistently presents itself as a “peacemaker,” that role has been taken by other countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia; and now US President Donald Trump and Putin have shown that they can talk without a mediator.
The limits of Chinese influence are even more apparent on its own borders, where Russia's deepening partnership with North Korea is causing alarm. China may welcome Russian interference in Europe, but the potential destabilization of the Korean Peninsula is another matter entirely.
If China is unwilling to influence the outcome in Ukraine and unable to prevent instability in its neighborhood, it suggests that China-Russia relations are not simply a junior-senior partnership. While the economic relationship has changed, politics has not yet followed suit.
Historically, China has long been the junior partner of its northern neighbor - and sometimes the victim. Tsarist Russia was among the imperial powers that carved up Chinese territory in the 19th century, seizing some 1,5 million square kilometers in northeastern China - an area that now makes up about one-sixth of China's territory. Later, in 1969, disputes over the same border sparked a seven-month conflict with the Soviet Union.
As a result, Beijing sees the past three decades of strong relations as the exception rather than the rule. Chinese leaders remain reluctant to redefine the relationship, especially when the current stance brings valuable benefits such as cheap energy. Given this potent combination of economic gain and political anxiety, they are unlikely to put serious pressure on the Kremlin.
Russia, for its part, has a hard time accepting the idea of Chinese dominance. It is still resisting negotiations on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, rejecting Chinese demands to sell gas at a heavily subsidized domestic price. Russia has also imposed significant “recycling fees” – which function similarly to tariffs – to respond to a sevenfold increase in Chinese car imports following the withdrawal of Western manufacturers.
Meanwhile, the Russian right is increasingly calling on the Kremlin to resist dependence on China. Noting that Russia’s sparsely populated Far East borders a huge Chinese population, nationalist commentators warn that the Chinese have not forgotten their “lost territories” and that they certainly want Russia’s sources of cheap energy and raw materials. Their arguments rely on history and identity, not just economics, to bolster a policy that rejects the role of supplicant.
Russia also appears to be keeping China at bay in the Arctic, where China wants to assert itself as a “Near-Arctic state.” And in North Korea, the more Russia provides fuel, food, and technical assistance, the less influence China has over Kim Jong-un.
Yet there are areas where China is becoming bolder. It is increasingly engaging in Russia’s traditional sphere of influence in Central Asia, pledging more than $25 billion in investment in the region in the first half of this year alone. Xi also recently attended the second China-Central Asia Summit in Astana — a clear signal of China’s priorities, given that he has been limiting his international travel.
These realities, rather than hand-on-heart declarations of “partnership without borders,” best reflect the state of bilateral relations. China-Russia relations are by no means on the verge of collapse, but their development will reflect political, historical, and geographical constraints, not trade volumes.
China still harbors a deep-seated fear of instability on its borders, shaped in part by Russia’s history of territorial aggression. That’s why neighboring North Korea, rather than Ukraine, has the greater potential to act as a wedge between the two countries. It’s also why China sees the collapse of Putin’s regime and the chaos that could ensue on its border as an intolerable outcome.
For Russia, the same mentality that led to the invasion of Ukraine shapes its view of China. The Kremlin is struggling to reconcile growing economic dependence with its self-perception as an eternal great power. The nationalist right argues that Western sanctions have forced Russia to become more independent and that this hard-won “autonomy” must not be lost. The very idea that Russia’s future could be determined on Chinese terms is unacceptable even to the country’s political elite.
This makes Russia's vision of the future unpalatable to China, which wants to establish itself as a technological powerhouse and the backbone of the global economy, rather than join an alliance of isolated, renegade actors who deliberately pursue destabilization.
Ten years after Xi and Putin's previous meeting at Tiananmen, images depicting unity cannot hide the historical distrust and divergent long-term interests of their countries.
Rabi Osman is a senior advisor on China policy and Dan Slit is a senior advisor on Russia and Ukraine policy at the Tony Blair Institute.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Bonus video:
