In a bookstore in the Hongkou district, near the Russian consulate in Shanghai, a documentary from the Chinese state television CCTV is being shown about the modern history of relations between China and Russia. The narration begins in 1949 when the Soviet Union became the first country to recognize the newly founded People's Republic of China. Moscow then sent over 10,000 technical advisors to Beijing to support Mao Zedong's government in almost every area: from urban expansion plans to heavy industry, and nuclear research.
The documentary briefly touches on the years of rupture. By the late 1950s, ideological differences opened a rift that soon became more than just doctrinal. Beijing denounced that the common border had been drawn through unequal treaties imposed in the 19th century by the Tsarist Russia, agreements that, according to the Chinese narrative, had taken vast territories from the Qing Empire. The dispute even led to armed clashes on the border in 1969. That fracture pushed the Asian giant towards the United States and culminated in Richard Nixon's historic visit to Beijing in 1972.
It took almost two decades for another trip to Beijing, this time by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989, to thaw the relationship between the two neighbors. Normalization was formalized in December 1991, just two days after the dissolution of the USSR. China, engaged in modernizing its military, needed weapons. Russia, mired in an economic crisis, needed customers. From that pragmatic exchange, a relationship was born that, in the following years, gained commercial, military, and diplomatic density.
But the balance shifted. When Vladimir Putin first received Xi Jinping in Moscow as Chinese president in March 2013, the Kremlin already needed Beijing much more than the other way around. Russia had energy and weapons. But China had something more decisive at that moment: money, market, industry, and technology.
Putin began to realize that if he ever decided to disrupt the European board, he would need China's economic umbrella. That is why that visit on February 4, 2022, when the Russian leader traveled to Beijing to attend the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, now takes on a different meaning. Bloomberg reported that Xi asked him not to provoke any military conflict in Ukraine during the event. The Games ended two weeks later. Just 24 hours later, Putin recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Shortly after, he announced a large-scale invasion. Since then, Russia has become more dependent on China.
This is the backdrop of Putin's new landing in Beijing this Tuesday, just four days after Donald Trump concluded his trip to China in an attempt to steer a relationship marked by tariffs, technological restrictions, and global leadership rivalry. Now it is the Russian autocrat who is welcomed with red carpet by another regime that presents itself as a diplomatic gravity center: capable of talking to Washington on equal terms while holding hands with Moscow.
With Trump, the Chinese president sought a tactical truce in the dispute between the two largest economies in the world. With Putin, with whom Xi challenges the Washington-led world order, he showcases the continuity of an alliance that both governments define on paper as a "limitless partnership."
An article published in the state tabloid Global Times this week stated that the visits of the US and Russian presidents demonstrated that Beijing was "rapidly emerging as the central point of world diplomacy," highlighting that it is "extremely rare in the post-Cold War era for a country to receive the leaders of the US and Russia consecutively."
In that balance fits information published by the Financial Times, according to which Xi told Trump during their recent meeting that Putin might "regret" launching the invasion of Ukraine. The statement is striking because it goes beyond the usual Chinese script, always measured and ambiguous. Beijing usually refers to the "Ukrainian crisis," avoiding pointing fingers at Russia as the aggressor and indirectly blaming Western security architecture for the conflict.
Hours before the State visit began, Putin delivered a video speech: "The relations between Russia and China have reached a truly unprecedented level."
Xi and Putin have met over 40 times. It is the twenty-fifth time that the Russian has traveled to China. Few relationships between heads of state have cultivated such a personal stagecraft as the one built by the Chinese and Russian leaders over the past decade.
Xi, extremely private about his personal life and not prone to displaying emotions in public, once described Putin as his "best and most intimate friend." Their bond has gone far beyond diplomatic summits and official statements. Both have woven a relationship full of carefully staged gestures for the cameras: birthday celebrations, toasts with vodka, walks, sports competitions, and even culinary demonstrations.
In 2013, coinciding with Putin's 61st birthday, Xi surprised the Russian president with a cake, and both celebrated the occasion with sausages and vodka. In 2018, Putin dared to prepare a popular Chinese street food dish, jianbing guozi (a kind of pancake filled with crispy fried dough), which he then served to Xi during a banquet. That same year, in Russia, both put on aprons again, this time to cook blinis, the traditional Russian pancakes, which they topped with caviar and accompanied with shots of vodka.
Putin arrived in the Chinese capital this week with a heavyweight delegation: deputy prime ministers, ministers, and executives from major energy companies. Moscow announced that, at the Wednesday summit, major bilateral economic issues will be addressed, including the Power of Siberia 2 project, the massive gas pipeline that Moscow wants to use to redirect part of the gas that previously went to Europe towards China.
"As the world transitions to multipolarity amid growing uncertainties, the relationship between China and Russia serves as a key stabilizer in a turbulent time," says Li Yongquan, director of the Eurasian Social Development Research Institute, a Chinese government-affiliated think tank. "These types of meetings highlight China's crucial stabilizing role within the international system."