What really holds China and Russia together

As they strolled through Tiananmen Square in Beijing last September, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to muse over the possibility that organ transplants could dramatically extend human life.

"Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and even achieve immortality", Putin's interpreter was heard saying.

"Some predict that in this century, humans may live up to 150 years old," Xi's interpreter was heard responding.

It was a fitting conversation for two strongmen, who have described each other as best friends, and who, after a combined 39 years in power, show no signs of stepping down.

This was a rare insight into what is quite a misunderstood partnership. This scrap of unscripted conversation is one of the few glimpses into a highly secretive relationship.

Putin will be returning to Beijing this week, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation between Russia and China.

When US President Donald Trump visited Xi last week he was met with an extravaganza of banquets with gold tableware and a visit to an ancient temple. Putin's visit feels far more low-key, with little information released in advance.

The Kremlin's spokesperson said they hoped to hear first-hand information about the Trump-Xi meeting.

Xi reportedly name-dropped his friend Putin to Trump last week, when the two leaders walked through Zhongnanhai, which is normally off-limits to foreign visitors, joking about how Putin had visited Beijing's political sanctuary before.

While some in Washington may have been hoping that Trump could wean Beijing off Moscow, such hopes appear little more than wishful thinking.

China and Russia have in recent years described their ties as a "friendship with no limits". So, what is this based on, and will their love affair last?

The relationship is highly uneven, and any deals struck between the two countries will likely be on Chinese terms, says Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank. He stresses, "Russia is fully in China's pocket, and China can dictate the terms."

This dynamic persists across many sectors, not least the economy. China is Russia's largest trading partner, while Russia makes up just 4% of China's international trade. China exports more than any other country to Russia, and its economy is significantly larger than Russia's.

Years of western sanctions have gradually pushed Moscow deeper into trade engagement with Beijing. Tech giant Huawei, which was sanctioned by the US and also forced out of UK 5G networks following a review by the British government, has capitalised on the lack of Western companies to become a key pillar of Russia's telecommunications industry.

With ever-more fractured links to the West, China has become the first port of call for expertise, whether technological, scientific or industrial.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has become increasingly dependent on Chinese components for its war machine. A recent Bloomberg report found that Russia was importing more than 90% of its sanctioned technology from China, a 10% increase on the previous year.

Russia is acutely aware of the risks of this imbalance. In a recent commentary written by Dmitry Trenin, president of the Russian International Affairs Council think tank, titled, 'We bow to no one', he made clear that Russia does not want to be a vassal state.

Speaking about China, he said: "[It's] absolutely essential for us to maintain an equal footing in our relations and to remember that Russia is a great power which cannot be a junior partner."

Moscow has few viable alternatives to Beijing, a buyer that offers a scale of demand and market integral to Russia's survival. Were China to lower its trade with Russia, considering the breakdown of relations with the West, it would significantly complicate Russia's foreign policy objectives.

However, Moscow's big advantage, and the buffer against it being pushed around by Beijing, is its ability to stand its ground.

According to Marcin Kaczmarski, a lecturer in security studies at the University of Glasgow, China is aware of how big this asymmetry is and is unwilling to generate any kind of backlash within Russia or among its elites.

"I would say that a summary of Chinese policy towards Russia is one of self-restraint," he says. "China is not pushing Russia around."

This is partly because it would be unwise - Russia may be the junior partner, but it's also a proud one.

Carnegie's Gabuev says that even if China was to try to force Russia's hand, it is "not exactly the kind of country to immediately accept it".

He gives the example of Xi's trip to Moscow in 2023, in which China's president was reported to have urged Putin not to use nuclear arms in Ukraine. Just days later, the Russian side announced that they would station nuclear weapons in Belarus, a move some saw as Moscow deliberately resisting external pressure and reminding the world of its independence.

Russia's grinding war in Ukraine may make it a liability in many ways, but it's also an asset to Beijing as it considers its options for a potential invasion of Taiwan. "Russia brings a lot to the table in terms of some military technologies such as niche equipment that it can still sell, and testing some Chinese equipment or components," says Gabuev.

Russia also has vast energy resources that are strategically important to China. At a press conference in May, Putin said that the two sides were very close to taking "a highly significant step forward in oil and gas cooperation".

He may have been referring to the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, for which Russian gas giant Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation reportedly signed a preliminary deal following years of stalled negotiations.

The pipeline will be a game-changer if built, delivering 50 billion cubic metres of Russian gas to China via Mongolia.

And for China, as the crisis continues in the Strait of Hormuz, its own gamble on Russian energy appears to be paying dividends. This isn't just about price points, it is about guaranteeing the future of China's domestic energy security in an increasingly turbulent world.

Whenever China and Russia appear to diverge, a simple truth at the heart of their relationship becomes clear: neither country must follow the other, because theirs is not a formal alliance.

Bobo Lo, former deputy head of mission at the Australian Embassy in Moscow, says it is this strategic flexibility, rather than the rigidity of a military alliance, that gives the partnership resilience.

"It is not an alliance, but a flexible strategic partnership," he says, one that has endured despite repeated predictions of its collapse.

Western analysts have tended to portray the China-Russia partnership in one of two ways: either as an "axis of authoritarianism" united largely by their desire to defeat the West, or as a brittle brotherhood, constantly on the cusp of collapse.

Neither fully captures how this has become an integral and increasingly difficult to replace relationship between two neighbouring countries who, despite their asymmetries and differences, share vital interests.

And Lo says that even if their relationships with the West were improved, the two countries have plenty of reasons to get along.

Chief among them is their shared 4,300km border, previously a frontier for insecurity. Then there are their complementary economies: Russia as a major exporter of oil, gas and other raw materials, and China's industrial economy providing a vast market for them. And one cannot ignore their shared opposition to a US-led world order.

Unlike Western nations, which sanction and punish on the basis of differing values including human rights, Russia and China do not pass judgement on the actions of the other. Recurring allegations of large-scale human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region of China, which China denies, and the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have made some Western nations more wary about engaging with the countries, but Moscow and Beijing overlook these issues.

"They don't criticise each other over Xinjiang, the poisoning of Russian Navalny and so on," Gabuev says. "And they look eye-to-eye on a lot of issues of local governments in the UN… that creates an organic symbiotic relationship."

There's also a long tradition of improving relations between the countries, he adds. "This trend towards a more pragmatic relationship… goes back to the Soviet system of Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev, Yeltsin," he says. "And I think the Chinese have been also the same."

As for whether the love affair will endure, a Chinese analyst, who requested anonymity, acknowledged that the public presentation of the China-Russia relationship as an inseparable pair by both countries was partly performative, aimed at projecting unity and stability.

In reality, this is a useful political tool to smooth over occasional differences in interests. While both governments oppose what they view as "Western hegemony", their approaches to this can diverge. Russia, the analyst suggested, wants to build a world order that bypasses the US entirely, but China remains more cautious and pragmatic. Beijing is often thought to eschew rash decision-making and prioritise patience and gradual gains to secure long-term outcomes.

They pointed to China's reaction to US actions in Iran, saying that Beijing was measured in its response and did not cancel its preparations for Trump's visit. "This clearly shows Beijing's willingness not to provoke and not to close doors," they added. China, they said, still wanted to keep communications open with Washington, and avoid unnecessary provocation - a markedly different approach to Russia's.

The partnership is often discussed through the lens of geopolitics and security, but another key factor is the depth of connections between the people of the two societies.

From the top down, Putin and Xi have tried to project an unmatched friendship between the two of them. This is Putin's 25th trip to China and Russian bureaucrats are likely to interact more with their Chinese counterparts than they do with officials from other countries.

Despite the camaraderie at the highest political levels, Charles Parton, a former British diplomat to China, is cynical about the natural cultural affinity between ordinary Chinese and Russians.

"Do Chinese want to study in Moscow and settle in Moscow and buy flats in Moscow? No." He believes that, if given the choice, Russians prefer to invest in the West and buy flats in Paris or London or Cyprus over, say, Beijing.

Not everyone agrees. Gabuev argues that the people-to-people exposure is growing rapidly, driven partly by Western sanctions and tighter European visa policies pushing Russians towards China.

It has become far easier for Russians to travel to China. A mutual visa-free regime means in just a matter of hours one can take any of several daily flights from Moscow to major Chinese cities.

Russians increasingly use Chinese phones and drive Chinese cars, more so in the wake of Western sanctions against Moscow.

"So the interconnectedness, visa-free travel and ease of payment and navigation makes China much closer than it used to be," Gabuev says. "And then all of the exchange programmes, scholarships, joint research programmes bring the two societies closer."

While the increasing imbalance in the relationship between Moscow and Beijing represents a long-term weakness, any predictions of a collapse seem far-fetched, at least in the short-term.

Despite the differences between the two, Lo says: "The Sino-Russian partnership remains resilient. Both sides recognise that it is too important to fail, especially given there are no viable alternatives to continuing cooperation."

Top picture credit: Getty Images

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