No Limits, No Good Options

Get audio access with any FP subscription. “No limits partnership.” Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin used this phrase in February 2022, striking a celebratory note just weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. More than four years later, the countries’ ties indeed appear to be thriving. Putin’s recent trip to Beijing, his first international visit in 2026, was the latest reminder of this relationship. But the visit also put on display how asymmetric the Beijing-Moscow relationship has grown. With Russia entangled in an unwinnable war and burdened by a stagnating economy, China is deciding what partnership looks like and what “no limits” actually means. It is Xi, not Putin, driving the proverbial bus. “No limits partnership.” Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin used this phrase in February 2022, striking a celebratory note just weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. More than four years later, the countries’ ties indeed appear to be thriving. Putin’s recent trip to Beijing, his first international visit in 2026, was the latest reminder of this relationship. But the visit also put on display how asymmetric the Beijing-Moscow relationship has grown. With Russia entangled in an unwinnable war and burdened by a stagnating economy, China is deciding what partnership looks like and what “no limits” actually means. It is Xi, not Putin, driving the proverbial bus. The big picture is clear. Both China and Russia have long had a problem with U.S. primacy and are joining forces to counterbalance it. They see the West as declining and a more multipolar world emerging, with U.S. President Donald Trump—to use a Leninist term— serving as the midwife of history. This alignment of views translates into policy. Since 2022, Beijing has thrown a lifeline to the Russian economy, providing a market for hydrocarbons and supplying critical goods, such as machinery, and dual-use products, such as electronic components. Moscow’s defense industries—notably, those making the drones and missiles pummeling Ukrainian cities—would not survive without China. And thanks to energy exports, the Russian economy has managed to blunt the impact of Western sanctions. Russia even runs a trade surplus with China. The economic and strategic linkage is enduring and will outlast the Ukraine war. All talk of a “reverse Kissinger”—Washington enlisting Russia as an ally in pressuring China—misses the mark. To the contrary, Putin is quite clearly courting Xi, just as Trump did during his own high-profile visit to Beijing. Yet Putin’s pilgrimage to Zhongnanhai also made it obvious that Russia is not getting the deal that it wants from China. In fact, Putin came back empty-handed. Specifically, there was no grand announcement about the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. This natural gas connection, designed to ship 50 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas annually over 2,600 kilometers (1,616 miles) from western Siberia to northeastern China, has been approved in principle by Gazprom and China’s CNPC. If implemented, the project would roughly double the current volume of gas that China buys from Russia, which covers about a fifth of Chinese imports. Yet, as ever, the devil is in the details: The Chinese are driving a hard bargain on price and on the take-or-pay quotas. Russia had hoped that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz putting in jeopardy much of the flow of liquefied natural gas would soften Beijing’s position, but so far, these hopes have been misplaced. At the end of the day, Russia, having largely lost the European markets, needs China more than the other way around. The Beijing is profiting from a surge of investment into renewables, which generate about 40 percent of its electricity. China has large coal reserves, too. Gas—which is used mainly in industrial production and for residential heating—could replace some of those. As in Europe, the Chinese look at natural gas as a transition fuel smoothing the switch from coal to renewables. As a result, its utility very much depends on the price. And Beijing also believes that flexibility is key to securing stable and affordable gas. This means that Chinese companies are setting up terminals and signing long-term contracts with Australian, Malaysian, and Indonesian suppliers along with those in the United States and Russia. All this means that they have alternatives to the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. The Chinese leadership surely remembers the precedent set by Power of Siberia 1. Negotiations lasted more than a decade, but eventually, Putin accepted China’s terms. Those included a price lower than the one paid by Gazprom customers in Europe, plus Russia bearing the financial cost of laying thousands of kilometers of pipeline. What eventually made Putin budge was Russia’s worsening relationship with Europe and the United States following the annexation of Crimea. China took ad

No Limits, No Good Options

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