Complex Ties

Much has changed since Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin last stood together atop Tiananmen Square in 2015. When they did so again this week, it was supposedly as equal partners. But, of course, the reality is far more complex.

- Ruby Osman & Dan Sleat

The conventional wisdom is that China has cemented its position as the dominant partner, especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After all, it is now Russia’s biggest trading partner, accounting for more than half of Russian imports in 2023, whereas Russia doesn’t even make China’s top five. While Russia relies on China to buy roughly half of its crude oil exports, these purchases account for only 17.5 per cent of China’s total oil imports. Simply put, Russia needs China to keep its own economy going.

Yet for all this dependence, China is not dictating outcomes, and the Kremlin is not acting like a junior partner. Consider the war in Ukraine. While it has some significant upsides for China — not least by diverting US resources from the Pacific theater - there is no doubt that Putin is calling the shots on the timing, scope, and endgame.

On paper, China may have the leverage to influence Russia's policy. But it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Ukraine could compel China to use it. Doing so would not only jeopardize China’s relations with a key partner, but also contravene its own core foreign-policy principle of “noninterference.” Putin knows that better than anyone.

Although China has consistently pitched itself as a “peacemaker,” that role has been filled by other countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia; and now, US President Donald Trump and Putin have proved capable of engaging each other without a broker.

The limits of Chinese influence are even more striking around its own borders, where Russia’s deepening partnership with North Korea is raising alarms. China may welcome Russian meddling in Europe, but potentially destabilising the Korean Peninsula is quite another matter.