Has the China-Russia Partnership Peaked?

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Sino-Russian relations have expanded significantly. Russia has reoriented much of its trade from Europe to China, conducting it now in rubles and yuan rather than dollars. Equipment and components supplied by China have played a vitally important role in helping Russia’s defence industry mitigate the effects of western sanctions.

There are several other examples of enhanced cooperation. Defence ties have grown. There has been collaboration on artificial intelligence, including its military applications. Scientific cooperation in the Arctic has increased. China and Russia have also worked closely together to promote anti-western messages to audiences in the global south.

Yet for all its stability and breadth, the relationship remains shallow. Despite Xi’s and Putin’s endorsement of a “partnership without limits” days before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, neither side has an interest in investing too heavily in mutual ties because of the dangers involved. China has no interest in Russia becoming excessively dependent on it because of the responsibility this would bring, and Russia has no desire to become China’s vassal.

Neither Russia nor China has an interest in investing too heavily in mutual ties because of the dangers involved.

A military-political alliance is out of the question. It would entail the possibility of one being brought into a war in support of the other—in Russia’s case, with the United States if China were to invade Taiwan, and in China’s case, potentially with NATO if Russia’s war against Ukraine were to expand.

Complementarity, not Convergence

While these thresholds provide stability and a degree of alignment to their ties, the question remains. Can the relationship deepen? The evidence suggests not. Economic ties—the area of greatest expansion since the start of Russia’s ‘big’ war against Ukraine—are a clear indicator.

Trade between the two countries is built on their natural complementarity. Russia exports raw materials in return for industrial and consumer goods that it cannot produce as efficiently. In 2023–25, with Russia under western sanctions, China’s share of Russia’s exports reached 30%, while its share of Russian imports grew to 37–38% in 2023–24. In 2021, the figure was 13–14%.

A military-political alliance is out of the question.

Impressive as they are, these figures disguise two important factors. First, China has no interest in delivering to Russia advanced machine tools and other equipment that would enable Moscow to become an industrial competitor. Second, in the case of the production of military goods, Russia’s goal is to achieve full import substitution rather than rely on China plugging gaps, as it has done to considerable effect so far during the war. This is hardly a sign of confidence in the future of the relationship.

An Energy Ceiling

Energy deliveries from Russia to China are also constrained—for the most part, by a lack of infrastructure. Since 2022, Russian oil exports to China have grown from around 1.5 mn barrels a day to approximately 2 mn. The East Siberia–Pacific Ocean Pipeline has a total capacity of 1.6 mn barrels per day, of which only half flows directly to China. This means that around 1.2 mn barrels per day are currently delivered by tanker. Port infrastructure bottlenecks on the Russian side are a limiting factor, while western sanctions related to tanker deliveries are an additional burden that raises the costs of transportation.

There are also physical ceilings to Russia’s oil exports. While output can probably be increased by a few percentage points in the short-term, the industry lacks investment, and production is set to decline slowly over the coming years.

Pipeline gas exports from Russia to China have grown from 15 bn cubic metres (bcm) per annum in 2022 to 38bcm in late 2024—the full operating capacity of the Power of Siberia 1 pipeline. The US–Israeli war against Iran has raised expectations that the proposed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline might move from the drawing board to construction, adding another 50 bn cubic metres of capacity. Yet China appears uncertain about its future gas needs and is in no hurry to commit.

Liquefied natural gas deliveries to China have grown from 9 bcm in 2022 to 15 bcm in 2025. They may rise further if the EU implements its decision to halt all imports of Russian LNG by 1 January 2027. However, restrictions on the availability of ice-class tankers could limit the growth of deliveries. While China has more than enough regasification facilities, the regions with increasing gas demand are not close to the ports where such terminals are located. This will place a physical constraint on the absorption of Russian LNG for the foreseeable future.

Trade Without Trust

Viewed more broadly, the economic relationship between the two countries is limited by the fact that China does not regard Russia as an attractive investment destination. The record speaks for itself. Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Chinese companies have undertaken 24 projects in Russia with a total value of $16.5 bn—half of it is concentrated in three portfolio investments in the energy sector. By contrast, in 2024, Chinese foreign direct investment in the EU and the UK in 2024 was €10 bn, down from a peak of more than €35 bn in 2016.

China does not regard Russia as an attractive investment destination.

A further sign of the constraints on the economic relationship is that major Chinese banks fear US secondary sanctions and have restricted direct transactions with Russian counterparts. Russia is trying to increase its use of China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, but it offers longer settlement times and lower liquidity than the western SWIFT system.

A limited partnership is the best characterisation of the China-Russia relationship at present. Alongside the restricted trade relationship, there are substantive differences that will not allow the two countries to draw closer or form anything resembling an alliance.

Mutual distrust stemming from historical disputes and past conflicts has not disappeared, and the civilisational differences between the two countries remain pronounced. These two factors will continue to constrain defence cooperation because neither side wants to provide the other with sensitive technologies that could harm their relative advantage.

Multi-faceted Military Cooperation

China helped Russia upgrade the drone systems it bought from Iran and began producing domestically, but Beijing’s main role has been restricted to supplying chips, machine tools, and other components to the Russian defence industry—rather than weapons themselves. For its part, Moscow continues to limit full military technology transfers despite selling fighter aircraft, helicopters, and submarines to China. The number of espionage cases in recent years involving Russian scientists allegedly recruited by China to supply missile and space-related secrets indicates that the Russian state places limits on what it shares with China.

Given the dramatic growth of Russia’s drone production capacities and the devastating use of drones to attack Ukraine, China’s assistance is far from trivial. Ukrainian sources claim that Chinese advanced machinery helped boost the output of Iskander-M ballistic missiles manufactured at the Votkinsk plant from 2023 to 2024 and later used in Ukraine. They also allege that in 2024, China supplied 70% of Russia’s imports of ammonium perchlorate, an essential ingredient in ballistic missile fuel.

Given the dramatic growth of Russia’s drone production capacities, China’s assistance is far from trivial.

On the face of it, the increased military-to-military cooperation is striking. Almost a third of all joint military exercises between China and Russia since 2003 have occurred after 2022. Their range has also expanded, and they now take place on the ground, in the air, and at sea.

Collision Course

However, this development must be seen against the background of Russia’s weakening position in Central Asia. China’s economic influence is growing rapidly, and the Central Asian countries increasingly see Russia as a less attractive and less reliable actor. Moscow’s claim to be the region’s main security provider is being undermined, as China’s Belt and Road Initiative transforms trade routes and cements Beijing’s geopolitical influence.

Central Asia is not the only arena where the interests of China and Russia are set to collide. Despite signs of cooperation in the Arctic, the two have divergent views on who has the right to control it, as melting sea ice creates new opportunities for maritime transport and the potential exploitation of its oil and gas deposits. As a littoral state, Russia views the region as an extension of its territory, while China calls itself a “near Arctic state.” Beijing believes that the Arctic should be treated as a ‘global commons’, beyond the jurisdiction of individual states.

Exhausted Potential

Although the China–Russia relationship has been impressively stable over the past 30 years, this does not mean that it will remain so indefinitely. For now, relations are highly dependent on the cordial interaction between Presidents Putin and Xi. Yet this cannot obscure the two countries’ underlying differences and motivations. China is playing a long game to build up its global influence and displace the US and its allies as the dominant force in international affairs.

China does not want Russia to lose the war, but there is no sign either that Beijing wants Moscow to prevail comprehensively.

By contrast, Russia is working to a much shorter timetable driven by the Putin regime’s quest for survival. This requires breaking and reshaping Europe’s post-Cold War security architecture. Breaking it has proved to be the easy part, as shown by the annexation of Crimea in 2014, followed a decade later by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To impose a new set of rules written by Moscow as the basis for European security requires Russia to win in Ukraine. For now, such a victory does not appear achievable. China does not want Russia to lose the war, but there is no sign either that Beijing wants Moscow to prevail comprehensively. Such an outcome could destabilise Europe and damage China’s economic interests.

The upshot is that the longer the war continues, the more Russia risks locking itself into a relationship of increased dependency on China that neither side wants. This relationship is close to exhausting its potential.

This article was written for the Lennart Meri Conference special issue of ICDS Diplomaatia magazine. Views expressed in ICDS publications are those of the author(s).