Just days after hosting US President Donald Trump, China’s President Xi Jinping is set to welcome Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The back-to-back visits underscore Beijing’s growing, central role in a fractured geopolitical landscape marked by great power rivalries.
Officially, Putin’s visit marks the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation. But the timing — immediately after Trump’s state visit — is noteworthy and highlights China’s influential position as it balances between two competing superpowers.
The agenda is expected to include bilateral economic and trade issues, as well as discussions on international and regional affairs. Amid Moscow’s isolation from the West over its invasion of Ukraine, China has become Russia’s largest trading partner, supplying more than a third of its imports and buying more than a quarter of Russian exports.
The partnership reportedly also has military dimensions. A Reuters investigation in July 2025 alleged that Chinese companies used shell firms to ship drone engines to Russian arms manufacturers as industrial cooling equipment — allegations Beijing denies.
Claus Soong of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Germany told DW that the current geopolitical landscape has placed Beijing in a notably advantageous position. Both the US and Russia now need China, albeit in opposing ways: Washington as a strategic rival, and Moscow as a partner with overlapping geopolitical and energy interests.
Because Trump was warmly received and left Beijing on an optimistic note, Putin’s visit could in part be aimed at seeking reassurances that any progress in China-US relations does not come at Moscow’s expense. For Putin, the immediate priority is to confirm that his close ties with Xi remain intact and to gauge Beijing’s current thinking.
Recent signals — including a more subdued Victory Day parade and continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure — suggest Moscow may be experiencing war fatigue. Putin even suggested that the conflict could be nearing a conclusion.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin has met with Xi frequently. For Beijing, the relationship remains a strategic priority, though the balance is asymmetrical, with Russia now relying more heavily on China than the other way around.
Ding Shufan, a professor at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, said Putin depends on China for continued imports of Russian energy, as well as access to dual-use goods and supply chains. Whether Beijing might adjust its level of support — “like controlling the water tap,” as Soong put it — remains unclear.
“China does not want war; it is not in China’s long-term interests,” Soong told DW. However, he added that a regime collapse in Russia would pose a greater risk for China. Beijing would view the collapse of regimes in both Iran and Russia as a negative outcome.
A weakened or unstable Russia would pose immediate strategic risks for Beijing. The two countries share a long border, and Moscow remains an important strategic partner. That means Beijing is unlikely to want Russia to lose too badly, even as it avoids taking on a more direct role in the war.
Turmoil in the Middle East could make Russian energy more attractive to Beijing. Russia accounted for nearly 18% of China’s oil imports in 2025, compared with around 13% from Iran and roughly 42% from other Gulf countries. Western sanctions have pushed Moscow to redirect exports eastward, while the US-Israeli war against Iran raises worries about maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
“China and Russia are like a couple in the same bed with different dreams,” Soong said, describing their interests as aligned but not identical. For China, one key aim is securing more reliable and sustainable energy supplies — without becoming overly dependent on Russian oil, which would give Moscow leverage.
While the meeting’s agenda is not yet clear, Soong says there could be signs of a possible cooling in the relationship. Signed agreements are often the beginning rather than the end of a process. He pointed to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s proposed development bank, first floated in 2010 but still not fully operational.
“There is no such thing as an ‘unlimited partnership,’” Soong said, referring to earlier rhetoric about China-Russia relations. When Putin and Xi met in Beijing in early 2022, they proclaimed that their “friendship has no limits.” However, Chinese officials have since downplayed that statement, with Fu Cong, then China’s ambassador to the EU, describing the phrase as “nothing but rhetoric.” Still, this does not mean Beijing and Moscow are not aligned. “If China is weighing its options between Europe and Russia, Russia still has more to offer,” Soong concluded.
Source: www.dw.com