When China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, welcomes President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in China this week, it will have been more than two years since the two autocratic leaders declared a “boundless” partnership to counter what they see as bullying and interference.
Growing challenges from the West have tested the limits of that partnership.
Xi is walking an increasingly tightrope, under growing diplomatic and economic pressure to reduce Chinese support for Russia and its war in Ukraine. Stronger support for Putin now could further alienate Europe, a key trading partner, as Beijing seeks to improve its image in the West and retain access for Chinese exports to help revitalize its sluggish economy.
“China sees Russia as an important strategic partner and wants to give Putin due respect, but it also wants to maintain strong relations with Europe and the United States for economic reasons and beyond. It is a very difficult balancing act,” said Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations expert.
Putin, for his part, may be testing Xi’s risk appetite as he tries to dissuade Western nations from more actively supporting Ukraine. Last week, while Xi was in France meeting President Emmanuel Macron, Putin ordered exercises for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The move was seen as the most explicit warning yet that Russia could potentially use battlefield nuclear weapons in the war, against which Xi has explicitly drawn a line.
The Russian leader is also likely to press Xi for more support to sustain his country’s isolated economy and its war machine in Ukraine.
Show of unity and strength
Putin just celebrated his fifth inauguration as president, making him the longest-serving Russian leader in centuries if he serves out his full term. And Xi has just returned from a trip to Europe where he was inducted in the pro-Russian states of Serbia and Hungary and wined and dined in France. He left the region without making any major concessions on trade or in Ukraine.
Xi has met Putin more than 40 times, including virtually, more than any other leader. The two often exchange birthday greetings and refer to each other as an “old” or “dear” friend. More importantly, they also appear to view each other as strategic partners in a major geopolitical rivalry and will likely use the talks to present themselves as leaders of an alternative global system aimed at eroding American dominance.
“The goal is to show how close China and Russia are,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.
But this solidarity with Russia makes China a target of Western pressure.
The United States says Beijing, while not supplying lethal weapons, continues to help the Kremlin’s war efforts by providing satellite intelligence, fighter jet spare parts, microchips and other dual-use equipment, in addition to filling Moscow’s coffers as the main buyer of oil. Russian. Washington has imposed sanctions on a number of Chinese companies for their ties to the war and has threatened to blacklist Chinese financial institutions that do business with Russian companies.
Beijing’s tacit support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine has also damaged China’s standing with the European Union. In France, when confronted about the war, Xi became furious and said that China “was not at the origin of this crisis, nor was it a part of it, nor a participant.”
China’s straddle may be working
Xi has made no suggestion that he would use his influence over Putin to end the war. And he may feel little need to do so.
China’s strategy of aligning itself with Russia while trying to stabilize ties with the West, what some have described as a strategic combination, may be bearing fruit.
China’s relationship with the United States, which fell to multi-decade lows last year, is somewhat more stable now. And top European leaders continue to engage with Xi, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, who brought business executives with him on a visit to Beijing last month.
The approach is gaining more support at home for Xi. Chinese scholars and analysts see momentum on the battlefield shifting in Russia’s favor, said Evan S. Medeiros, a professor of Asian studies at Georgetown University.
“For Xi, the strategic combination is working better than they could have imagined, and China has paid little cost for it,” he said.
Xi also needs Russia as a counterweight in his country’s rivalry with the United States, which plays out over American support for Taiwan, China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and access to cutting-edge technology. China and Russia have stepped up military exercises in the East China Sea, putting pressure on Taiwan, the autonomous island that Beijing claims as its territory.
“Even if the relationship between China and Russia were not so close,” said Xiao Bin, a Beijing-based expert on China’s relations with Russia, “U.S. political elites may not regard China as a strategic partner.” , but they would continue to see it as a strategic partner. as a potential threat, even an enemy.”
Putin’s growing dependence on China
Putin, however, risks becoming overly dependent on China to a degree that might have made Russian officials uncomfortable in the past. China has become Russia’s lifeline since the invasion of Ukraine, displacing the European Union as Russia’s largest trading partner.
Putin still pursues his own interests. His growing closeness to North Korea, which supplies munitions to Russia, could make both countries less dependent on Beijing.
But amid its isolation from the West, the Kremlin has been left with few options: Putin needs China to buy energy, supply him with dual-use components such as computer chips to sustain his army, and provide him with a currency to transport carry out transactions abroad.
Last year, about 89 percent of “high-priority” imports needed for Russian weapons production came from China, according to an analysis of customs data by Nathaniel Sher, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. These range from machine tools used to build military equipment to optical devices, electronic sensors and telecommunications equipment, according to the analysis.
“It’s much more of a survival mode. You are in a war situation,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and an expert on Sino-Russian relations.
For Putin, protecting himself against China “is a luxury he no longer has,” he added.
Olivia Wang contributed with reports.