OPINION — During a February 24 telephone call from Russian President Vladimir Putin to China’s President Xi Jinping, Mr. Xi reiterated China’s “no limits” partnership with Russia, and Mr. Putin provided an update on the interactions between Russia and the U.S. on the war in Ukraine. This was their second telephone exchange this year, with both emphasizing the “durability and long-term nature of the alliance … good neighbors that cannot be moved apart.”
This Sino-Russian alliance would have been unimaginable in 1969, when the Soviet Union had 42 divisions – over one million troops – stationed on the border with China, with indications that Moscow was considering a nuclear strike on Chinese nuclear facilities. That March, Chinese and Soviet forces clashed on Zhenbao Island in the Ussuri River, with both sides taking casualties. The conflict ended in two weeks, averting an escalation of hostilities with the potential use of nuclear weapons.
Indeed, the current Sino-Russian alliance would have been unimaginable a decade later to China’s former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, who during his January 1979 visit to the U.S. agreed to expand cooperation with the U.S. in collecting and sharing intelligence on the Soviet Union. Working primarily with China, the Ronald Reagan Administration succeeded in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan, when the last Soviet aircraft left Bagram Airfield on February 3, 1989. And on December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union. This was the formal end of the Cold War, with Ukraine and Belarus declaring independence and the Baltic states seeking international recognition as sovereign states.
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A long history
But China’s fraught relationship with Russia goes back to 1858 and the Treaty of Aigun, and the Treaty of Peking in 1860, when China was compelled, after a humiliating defeat in the second Opium War, to cede to imperial Russia large land areas in China’s Northwest region. This area now includes Vladivostok, the country’s largest city in the far east, which provides Russia with a military outpost and naval base on the Pacific Ocean.
Despite this history, China’s President Xi Jinping proclaimed a “no limits” partnership with Mr. Putin and the Russian Federation three years ago, in the days prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Currently China is buying – at a good price – Russian crude oil and gas, with trade between the two countries reaching record highs. China is Russia’s largest trading partner, buying a vast variety of other Russian exports at discount prices, given the array of sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Although China denies providing weapons to Russia, China reportedly is providing dual-use critical components – estimated at $300 million every month — enabling Russia to produce munitions, tanks, armored vehicles, missiles and drones. According to former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, about 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the microelectronics Russia imports come from China. Trade between China and Russia reached a record high of $240 billion in 2023, an increase of 64% since 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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China’s relationship with a Russia that invaded a sovereign and independent Ukraine has adversely affected China’s credibility with the European Union and other countries. Foreign Direct Investment in China fell $168 billion in 2024. International companies are leaving China, and Chinese firms are also moving money abroad for better returns.
Meanwhile, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine continues, with significant casualties on both sides. The devastation to Ukraine is catastrophic, with millions of people displaced. Currently, negotiations with Russia and the U.S. are underway. The concern is that a fair settlement to this war of aggression must include Ukraine and compensation for the lives lost and the social and economic devastation Russia continues to inflict on Ukraine.
Indeed, it was Mr. Putin who said the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the Soviet Union) was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” Therefore, the concern arises that if Mr. Putin prevails in Ukraine, he will not stop. And that means that Poland, Finland and the Baltic states and territories of the former Soviet Union, to include all countries of the former Warsaw Pact, are vulnerable.
Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine could be the beginning of his effort to recreate the Russian empire. Although it’s in China’s interest to see an end to the war in Ukraine, it is not in China’s interest to maintain a close allied relationship with a revanchist Russian Federation. The impact on China’s economy and international credibility will be profound. And without China’s support, Russia will find it difficult, if not impossible, to persist with its invasion of Ukraine. Will the elites and other people in China tell Mr. Xi that aligning with Mr. Putin and his expansionist goals is not in China’s interest?
This column by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani was first published in The Washington Times
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