In a world bristling with geopolitical flashpoints and shifting alliances, few relationships are more consequential than that of Russia and China. Yet, much of the Western discourse surrounding this entente remains mired in Cold War nostalgia and wishful strategic thinking.
Historical Roots and Strategic Geography
Some Western capitals appear to nourish hopes that it might be possible to drive a wedge between Russia and China—an inversion of what President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger achieved in the 1970s, when they aligned with China against the Soviet Union.
Russia is both a European and an Asian country, stretching across 11 time zones from West to east. It shares the world’s longest land border with China. Historically, the relationship between the two countries was tense, particularly following Russia’s annexation of some Chinese territories in the late 19th century. During the Czarist era, the Russian elite was culturally oriented toward Europe, and the country expanded westward, ultimately reaching its greatest territorial extent as the Soviet Union in 1945.
Siberia is now a strategic priority for Moscow. From the Kremlin’s view, this is entirely reasonable. There is a perception that this vast, sparsely populated region, with its abundant natural resources and expanding agricultural potential, could be threatened by spillover from the 1.4 billion Chinese living just south of the border. However, such fears appear increasingly unfounded, as China, like Russia, is facing a rapid demographic decline.
Currently, relations between Moscow and Beijing at the government level are powerful, and the two countries rely on each other. For now, the idea of driving a wedge between them seems unlikely. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s—and the loss of vast territories in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Ukraine and the Baltics—is seen not only by President Vladimir Putin as a historic catastrophe, but is also widely regarded as such within Russia.
Today, Moscow claims that trust in the West has eroded for several reasons. Its current political doctrine includes a pivot to Asia, even while it seeks to reclaim lost territories in Ukraine and the Baltics. There is also ongoing concern over NATO’s strong presence in neighboring countries.
A Flexible but Firm Partnership
The Sino-Russian relationship is closer and more interconnected in 2025 than it has ever been. The cooperation between Beijing and Moscow is a nexus—their relationship is a flexible and strategic knot of interconnections across the military, technological, economic, and political domains. The structural rigidity of a formal defensive alliance does not bind it. This Sino-Russian nexus has solidified against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine. Moscow and Beijing have both exploited the circumstances of this conflict to deepen their strategic entanglement, making it strategically impossible to separate them at this time. The PRC’s material support for the Russian conflict effort gives the PRC considerable influence over the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine. The PRC is undoubtedly watching the battlefield in Ukraine closely and observing international reactions to Russia’s military campaign, and likely hopes to apply those military and diplomatic lessons to its future endeavors in the western Pacific, particularly in the case of an invasion of Taiwan.
Beijing and Moscow see their futures as intertwined, and U.S. policy towards the two must reflect that reality. The idea of splitting Russia from China has always been and will always remain attractive. U.S. President Richard Nixon’s success, facilitated by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s efforts, is often regarded as a model to be emulated. But the US-PRC rapprochement and the Sino-Soviet split occurred in the context of pre-existing severe tensions between the Soviet Union and the PRC, with the PRC looking for a way out of a desperate strategic situation facing a hostile Soviet Union. The PRC and the Russian Federation are today close partners whose geopolitical ambitions are aligned in their strong opposition to the US-led global order. Any existing frictions in the relationship, even if exploitable by the United States, fall far short of the historical hostilities that precipitated the Sino-Soviet split, as a quick historical review of the relationship will show.
Why China Cannot Afford a Russian Defeat
Though many Western analysts frame China’s support for Russia in terms of an Indo-Pacific calculus—namely, the fear of a post-Ukraine U.S. pivot to Taiwan—this only scratches the surface of Beijing’s strategic thinking. A far more pressing concern for China is the precedent a Russian defeat would set in the international system.
China views Russia not just as a partner, but also as a test of the durability of sovereign resistance to Western-led interventions and sanctions regimes. If Russia were to lose in Ukraine—militarily or economically decisively—it would reaffirm the efficacy of NATO expansionism, U.S.-European coalition-building, and sanctions warfare as tools of containment. That would deeply undermine China’s long-term ambitions, particularly its goals for regional hegemony and its ability to reshape global norms from within institutions like the UN, BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Moreover, a Russian collapse could lead to unpredictable fragmentation across Eurasia—potentially destabilizing Xinjiang and Central Asia, both of which are critical to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing is well aware that its border security and strategic depth are tied not just to Moscow’s survival, but to Russia’s ability to hold the line against what both powers view as an overreaching liberal empire.
In short, China does not support Russia because it wants to distract the West—it supports Russia because it cannot afford to see an alternative power structure annihilated. Ukraine is not just a battleground for territory; it is a battlefield for the legitimacy of multipolarity.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently told EU diplomat Kaja Kallas that Beijing did not want to see Russia lose in Ukraine, not because it directly supports the conflict, but because it feared a U.S. strategic realignment against China. If Russia were to falter, Washington could shift its full focus to the Indo-Pacific. While some EU officials were surprised by Wang’s frankness, the comment underscores a widely held belief in Beijing—that a Russian defeat would upend the delicate balancing act China has maintained amid great power rivalry.
Wang further rejected accusations that China was materially aiding Russia’s war effort, claiming that if Beijing were truly providing such support, the conflict would have ended long ago. These remarks, while diplomatically calibrated, reinforce the view that China and Russia perceive their geopolitical fates as closely intertwined.
Asia on the Horizon: A New Geostrategic Landscape
As emphasized in recent issues of *Weekly Outlook: Asia on the Horizon*, the Indo-Pacific is undergoing a profound shift. From India’s energy-balancing diplomacy in the Middle East to Japan’s distancing from NATO and Singapore’s growing resilience in its ties with China, Asia’s middle powers are actively redefining their alliances.
The Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin further revealed a cohesive theme: a rising Global South rethinking the structures of global trade and security. With Chinese Premier Li Qiang championing de-dollarization and strategic connectivity, it’s clear that China is building an architecture of influence that transcends bilateral support for Russia. Strategic autonomy, institutional pluralism, and anti-hegemonic sentiment are now the shared language of a new multipolar coalition.
Against this backdrop, NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte recently suggested that China might convince Russia to attack Europe to distract the West from Taiwan. Such speculative paranoia signals how deeply unsettling the Sino-Russian entente has become for Atlantic policymakers. The view from Beijing and Moscow, however, is less about triggering conflict than about outlasting and outmaneuvering a bloc that has shown itself to be ideologically rigid and strategically reactive.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books
