The meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on May 20 offered an important insight into the contemporary nature of Sino-Russian relations. While Putin greeted viewing the relationship as a “comprehensive strategic coordination paradigm,” the summit highlighted ongoing tensions between the ideological rhetoric surrounding the partnership, on the one hand, and the practical limits of cooperation as the relationship becomes increasingly dominated by Beijing, on the other.
One reason why some commentators tend to ignore the limitations of the Sino-Russian partnership is that they fail to situate the relationship within the broader framework of China’s foreign policy of “partnership diplomacy.”
Beijing employs a hierarchy of partnerships to signal varying degrees of political importance. At the top of this hierarchy are “global strategic partnerships,” a characterization that designates a structured but flexible and non-binding framework for cooperation in multiple areas while avoiding the mutual defense commitments associated with traditional alliances. Like Evan Feigenbaum note“[T]These Chinese partnerships, unlike Washington’s alliances, carry no presumption of obligation or binding commitment in matters of security.
Seen in this light, the Putin-Xi summit demonstrated both the depth and constraints of the Sino-Russian relationship.
This is reflected in the statements and documents released by Moscow and Beijing after the meeting. These reveal a shared dissatisfaction with the current Western-led international order, a common desire to promote a more multipolar global system, and commitments to deepen their practical cooperation. Yet in each of these aspects of the partnership, there is enough light between the positions and interests of each party to suggest that they are far from joined at the hip.
That of the Kremlin release The “Joint Declaration of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the Establishment of a Multipolar World and a New Type of International Relations,” for example, clearly demonstrated the shared normative vision of Moscow and Beijing by defining the partnership in primarily ideological terms.
The Kremlin statement described the post-Cold War international order as subject to inevitable evolution. transition from a Western-led unipolarity to a multipolar or “polycentric” system, which Moscow presents as both fair and reflecting the interests of the non-Western world. The document sentenced “hegemonism” as something that is both “unacceptable” and “must be prohibited”, before denouncing “unilateral coercion”, “military blocs” and attempts by Western powers to impose their political systems or values on others. Instead of these pathologies, the Kremlin statement argued for an order based on respect for state sovereignty, non-interference and the equal legitimacy of different civilizational and political models.
As such, the Russian document constitutes a reaffirmation of the ideological and strategic rationale for the “no holds barred” partnership that was first put in place. offered in February 2022 during Putin’s state visit to China.
For comparison, China’s new state agency, Xinhua, released a detailed report on the summit which adopted a more measured tone. The Xinhua summary prioritizes pragmatic cooperation, economic coordination and reform of the international order within existing institutions.
The report note that Xi and Putin both called for a “fairer and more reasonable international order” but did not repeat the more pointed critiques of “hegemonism” and “unilateralism” that peppered the Kremlin’s statement. On the contrary, Xinhua recorded Xi telling Putin that Russia and China, as “permanent members of the UN Security Council and major world powers,” should focus on “the development and revitalization of their respective countries” and “promote the construction of a fairer and more reasonable global governance system.”
Contrary to the Russian statement, the Xinhua report note Xi emphasizes that China-Russia relations are “a strategic choice made by both sides focusing on the core interests of the two countries.” must promoting both “pragmatic cooperation in economic and trade investment, energy resources, transportation and technological innovation” and “multilateral cooperation” in forums such as the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS to “safeguard the post-war international order and the authority of international law, unite the countries of the South, and lead the right direction of reform of the global governance system”.
This illustrates a key distinction between Russian and Chinese revisionism. Beijing does not present itself as a revolutionary actor or an agent of “upheaval”, but rather as a defender of the existing international order, centered on the UN, advocating “reform” from within.
On the question of practical cooperation, the Kremlin announced that some 22 agreements had been concluded. sign in the presence of Putin and Xi in the Great Hall of the People. Besides the “Joint Declaration of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on Establishing a Multipolar World and a New Type of International Relations,” the rest of these documents concern memorandums of understanding (MoUs) between Russian and Chinese ministries, higher education institutions and state media.
This continues a trend evident for some time of deepening functional cooperation which will beyond the pageantry of leaders’ summits (and the one-on-one relationship between Putin and Xi). Such functional cooperation extends from the military-defense field to energy, technology, financeand education.
However, this cooperation is increasingly asymmetrical.
As Sino-Russian economic relations continue to develop, for example, it is structurally unbalanced with Russian exports to China consisting almost exclusively of fossil fuels and/or natural resources, while Chinese exports consist of manufactured goods such as cars, tractors, electronics, and other consumer products.
This trend was evident Before Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, but it has accelerated due to the imposition of European and American sanctions regimes on Russia. As noted by Alexandre Gabuev, the network result is that “Western sanctions freed the Russian market for the Chinese and forced Russian exporters of raw materials to rush to China,” while “Russian import substitution based on Chinese technologies only accelerated this process.”
Meanwhile, Chinese economic investments in Russia remain limit at around $400 million per year since 2022. China invests more “in countries like the Dominican Republic and Zambia” than its supposed “limitless” partner.
The asymmetry of the relationship is also apparent in the area of Sino-Russian military and defense relations. It was once seen by Russia as an area of comparative advantage in the relationship. But the war in Ukraine made Russia addicted on China to access a range of dual-use military and industrial products such as ball bearings, vehicle parts, optical sights and electric detonators. This dependence is critical in certain sectors of the Russian defense industry, with China, according to to Ukrainian intelligence services, which represent the majority of electronics used in Russian military drones.
The summit has done little to control this asymmetry.
In fact, the handling at the top of the costly subject that Moscow research the progress made in the economic field – the agreement on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline – clearly demonstrates the relative balance of power within the partnership. Not only was progress on Power of Siberia 2 not made, it was not even mentioned in the official Chinese accounts of the summit.
Moscow undoubtedly hoped that the consequences for the energy security of Israel and the US war against Iran renewed incentives for Beijing to join. However, this ignores two crucial realities. First, as Feigenbaum says, China bought oil and gas “in a global market, and its policy in no region – from the Middle East to Latin America – does not depend on a single state” – including Russia.
Second, due to its isolation from European markets, Russia has nowhere to go, giving China all the leverage it needs for any possible negotiations on prices and duration of gas supply contracts. Indeed, even before Putin’s visit, it was reported that negotiations between Gazprom and CNPC were at a standstill due to insistence that gas prices should be “aligned with Russian domestic rates”.
Gabouev reached a conclusion ” which increasingly summarizes the whole relationship: ““It is the Chinese comrades who are increasingly able to dictate which projects they are interested in and which are not, and under what conditions the PRC will participate in something. »
The Putin-Xi summit demonstrated that Sino-Russian relations remain strategically important but are increasingly defined by asymmetry rather than equality.
Although both states share dissatisfaction with the Western-led international order and seek a more multipolar system, the summit revealed important differences. Russia continued to define the partnership in ideological and revisionist terms, emphasizing opposition to “hegemonism” and Western domination, while China adopted a more cautious and pragmatic tone focused on economic cooperation, multilateral coordination, and reform of the international order within existing institutions.
Beijing’s language reflected its preference for strategic flexibility and stability rather than open revolutionary confrontation with the West. The summit therefore reinforced that Sino-Russian alignment is driven less by deep ideological unity than by overlapping but not identical strategic interests.
At the same time, the summit highlighted the increasingly unequal balance within these relations. Russia’s dependence on China has increased significantly since the invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of Western sanctions, leaving Moscow dependent on Chinese markets, industrial goods, technology and dual-use products. Yet Beijing has shown itself reluctant to subordinate its own interests to Russian priorities.
While Sino-Russian relations are therefore expected to remain enduring as they continue to serve important strategic objectives for both sides, the so-called “no-holds-barred” partnership is increasingly one in which China holds the dominant position and has increasing leverage in shaping both the scope and limits of bilateral cooperation.