China and Russia condemned US President Donald Trump's plans for the "Golden Dome" missile defense shield and Washington's "irresponsible" nuclear policy at a summit held a week after President Xi Jinping hosted Trump in Beijing.
A joint statement issued after Xi's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin served to emphasize that the Chinese leader, while seeking to maintain stable and constructive relations with Trump, fundamentally disagrees with him on key issues where China's position is closely aligned with Russia's, Reuters reports.
The statement states that Trump's plan for a ground-based and space-based missile interception system threatens global strategic stability, and Washington is also criticized for allowing an agreement limiting US and Russian nuclear arsenals to expire.
The agreement expired in February, and Trump did not respond to Moscow's proposal to extend the limits on missiles and warheads for a year - which some American politicians argued would prevent the US from responding to China's nuclear buildup.
Yet, while the two leaders spoke with one voice on global security issues, they failed to achieve the breakthrough Moscow has long sought - a deal for a new gas pipeline that would allow it to more than double the amount of natural gas it sells to China.
Moscow had signaled ahead of the visit that it was seeking additional energy deals with China, Russia's largest oil buyer, including pipeline deliveries and sea shipments.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that China is interested in long-term supplies of Russian oil and an increase in volume, which, he said, has increased by 10 percent in four months.
During Putin's last visit in September 2025, Russian gas giant Gazprom announced that the two sides had agreed to continue work on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, a planned 2.600-kilometer-long pipeline that would transport 50 billion cubic meters of gas annually from Russia to China, via Mongolia.
China has said very little publicly about the project. Although Xi said on Wednesday that energy cooperation and resource connectivity should be the “ballast stone” of Sino-Russian relations, he did not mention the pipeline.
Key issues, such as the price of gas, remain unresolved, and analysts expect negotiations could last for years.
The Kremlin said the two sides had reached a “general understanding on the parameters” of the project, although no details or clear timeframe had been agreed. Novak said, according to Reuters, that Russia and China were finalizing contracts for deliveries through the pipeline.
"Key disagreements over price, financing and contract terms appear to have not been resolved," said Daniel Slit, senior policy advisor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
"Russia needs this agreement more than China, having lost a large part of the European gas market, while Beijing still seems content to take it slow and maintain flexibility over future energy supply options."
In a joint declaration, the two sides outlined plans for further cooperation in a wide range of areas, from artificial intelligence to the protection of rare tigers, leopards and pandas. They accused the US and Israel of violating international law by attacking Iran and expressed “resolute opposition to hegemonism and unilateralism.” “The global agenda for peace and development is facing new risks and challenges, with the danger of fragmentation of the international community and a return to the ‘law of the jungle,’” the joint declaration said, according to the Kremlin.
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