When China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, hosts President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia this week, the two leaders presented a united front. But they have different agendas.
Mr. Putin is trying to escalate his war in Ukraine before Ukrainian forces can receive a replenishment of arms from the United States, and probably wants to know he can rely on China. Mr. Xi is keen to exploit Russia’s acute wartime needs to secure preferential access to Russian resources and markets, but he is also under pressure to avoid further alienating the West over his support for the Kremlin.
Those priorities were the backdrop of Mr. Putin’s two-day state visit, which began in Beijing on Thursday, and included a trip to the northeastern city of Harbin, where a China-Russia trade fair was being held.
Mr. Putin likely sought more help from Beijing, which has provided a lifeline to the Kremlin since Western sanctions were imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. China purchases huge quantities of Russian oil and sold technologies that helped Moscow withstand its economic isolation and sustain its war machine.
Mr. Xi considers Russia an important ally in China’s rivalry with the United States, but if helps Russia too much, he risks alienating Europe, a key trading partner, just as China is relying on exports to revive its sluggish economy.
Here is what to know about the summit.
A Personal Relationship and a Shared Vision
The visit is Mr. Putin’s first foreign trip since winning his fifth presidential election in March. Mr. Xi showed the same respect to Mr. Putin when he made Russia his first foreign trip after securing his norm-shattering third term as China’s president in March 2023.
Mr. Xi has met with Mr. Putin over 40 times, including virtually, which is more than any other leader. The two men have cast their relationship as deeply personal by exchanging birthday greetings and referring to each other as “old” and “dear” friends.
In Mr. Putin, Mr. Xi sees a like-minded autocratic leader who blames the United States for holding back his country’s rise. The two leaders declared a “no limits” partnership weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to push back against what they consider American hegemony.
Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin also view themselves as architects of a new world order free of U.S. interference. The two leaders have promoted multilateral groupings of developing countries like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, so named because it includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, as a way to counterbalance the West.
Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin projected strength and solidarity during their summit, demonstrating that there is an alternative to the U.S.-led global system.
“Russia-China relations have reached an all-time high, and even in the face of severe international situations, relations between the two countries continue to strengthen,” Mr. Putin said in an interview with Chinese state media published on Wednesday.
What Putin Wants
China has vowed not to provide lethal weapons to Russia, but the United States and Western analysts say China has been helping Russia with satellite intelligence and fighter jet parts as well as supplying components with both civilian and military uses, such as microchips, machine tools, optical devices, electronic sensors and telecommunications gear.
Mr. Putin most likely wants any such supply of parts and equipment to continue, to help sustain his military’s advances as he intensifies the war effort.
Russian forces opened a new line of attack in recent days near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Ukraine’s forces are stretched thin and running short on weapons, but billions of dollars’ worth of arms from the United States are expected to trickle in soon.
Mr. Putin also likely sought more trade and business deals and traveled with a large delegation. Included were five deputy prime ministers, and the heads of Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear power company, and Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency. Sergey V. Lavrov, the foreign minister was also there, as was Maksim Reshetnikov, the economy minister, and Andrei R. Belousov, an economist who was named the new defense minister this week.
“The people involved reflect the priorities of both sides,” said Elizabeth Wishnick, a senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses in Virginia who studies Chinese foreign policy.
Mr. Belousov has experience working with China, having previously been co-chairman of the Intergovernmental Russian-Chinese Commission on Investment Cooperation, which was founded in 2014 to promote more trade between the two countries.
Among the deputy prime ministers traveling with Mr. Putin was Alexander Novak, the man in charge of Russian oil and gas, including the development of the Power of Siberia 2 natural gas pipeline. Mr. Putin has long sought to cement an agreement on the project, which would redirect Russian gas supplies that had gone to Europe toward China instead.
It is unclear whether Mr. Xi is interested in the pipeline. Analysts say the Chinese leader could be reluctant because it would travel through a third country, Mongolia, and that it could expose China to potential secondary sanctions and leave it even more reliant on Russia for energy.
Mr. Putin did not announce any progress on the pipeline at the end of his trip.
“I am not prepared to discuss any technical details, but the interest of both sides in realizing these projects has been confirmed,” Mr. Putin told reporters shortly before departing for Russia, referring to Power of Siberia 2.
Xi’s Strategic Straddle
Mr. Xi has tried to align with Russia and steady ties with the West at the same time to help his ailing economy, an approach that some call a strategic straddle.
China casts itself as neutral on the war in Ukraine and as a proponent of peace. It has offered a vague, 12-point plan for a political settlement of the war and sent an envoy to conduct shuttle diplomacy in Europe.
Western countries have dismissed China’s efforts because they do not call for a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. China also sides with Russia by blaming the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for creating the tensions that led to Moscow’s invasion.
Mr. Xi’s refusal to condemn the Kremlin’s war has ultimately worsened China’s relations with the West, and it has led to Europe’s growing alignment with the United States on security issues. This makes China’s efforts to head off a trade war with the European Union — over exports of Chinese electric vehicles and market access for European companies — harder for Mr. Xi.
Tensions are also rising with the United States, testing a tentative détente struck by President Biden and Mr. Xi in November. The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a sharp increase in tariffs on an array of Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, solar cells, semiconductors and advanced batteries.
During a visit to Beijing last month, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned that the United States would blacklist Chinese banks aiding Russia’s war effort. Russian media reported earlier in the year that Chinese financial institutions had already begun scaling back transactions with Russian firms over concerns about secondary sanctions. Analysts say the change most likely contributed to the drop in year-on-year trade between Russia and China in March, the first such decline since January 2021, according to Chinese customs data.
Anatoly Kurmanaev contributed reporting.
