Vladimir Putin seems to like visiting China: no lectures about human rights, some chummy chat with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and reassurance that his most powerful ally is still on side. This week’s trip is likely to be longer on warm words than concrete progress, though, and while it may satisfy Putin, it is likely to further alarm an elite worried that Russia is falling into Beijing’s orbit.
Putin’s trip, hot on the heels of Donald Trump’s own visit to Beijing, is officially to attend the 25th anniversary of the signing of the pompously named Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship, and Cooperation. The Russian press presented Trump’s visit last week as something of a damp squib, all pageantry but no real results. It looks as if Putin’s visit will be a little more substantive.
There will be much talk of the new, multipolar world, which is essentially code for a world in which the United States is no longer the dominant hegemon. There will be agreement on the need to resolve the Iran crisis, but nothing on Ukraine. There will also be deals on issues such as visa-free travel, educational exchanges, joint space missions and nuclear energy cooperation.
Despite the embarrassment of a Russian drone hitting a Chinese-owned cargo ship off Ukraine on Monday, Putin will likely get his reassurances that Beijing’s diplomatic balancing act with Washington isn’t affecting its relationship with Moscow.
However, it’s rather less likely that there will be any progress on major practical issues, such as the long-stalled Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline that Moscow would dearly love to see built.
Putin may be happy enough with this, but Jinping’s unwillingness to make concessions on Moscow’s concerns highlights a perilous dependency on a China that sees the relationship as highly pragmatic and transactional.
There is much talk of an eternal friendship with no limits, but China, knowing it has Russia over a barrel, drives viciously hard bargains over the energy it buys and the terms under which it exports its goods.
Russian industries complain of aggressive Chinese practices. Sergei Chemezov, head of the massive Rostec arms conglomerate and an old friend of Putin’s from their days working as KGB officers in 1980s East Germany, broke ranks by publicly calling for controls on Chinese car imports.
Russian diplomats also grumble about the way Chinese interests are displacing them in Central Asia, in Africa and in Latin America.
‘Putin seems to accept whatever concessions are needed to keep Beijing on side,’ writes Mark Galeotti (Photo: Alexander Kazakov/AFP)Russian security services warn that Chinese spying inside the country has increased since 2022, while the military continues to be wary, acutely conscious that even when not committed to a major war elsewhere, Russian forces along the 2,600-mile border with China are thinly stretched.
Chinese nationalists complain about the so-called “Unequal Treaties” imposed on it by Russia in the 19th century, which saw them lose almost 400,000 square miles of territory. No wonder Russians react with alarm whenever China produces maps in which cities taken by Russia are labelled with their original Chinese names.
Putin himself seems unable or unwilling to recognise these concerns. He is fixated on Ukraine, a war which will define his legacy and may even make or break his presidency.
Just as Putin is willing to abandon geopolitical positions around the world in the name of concentrating on his “special military operation”, he also seems to accept whatever concessions are needed to keep Beijing on side.
He needs China’s dual-use technology: items that have a military purpose but can be sold as civilian, from trucks to fibre-optic cable. He needs their consumer items to satisfy a population that can no longer buy Western goods. He needs continued access to the Chinese financial system. He also needs Beijing’s voice in the Global South and its veto at the UN General Assembly.
But what are the long-term costs?
This has opened a generational divide within the Russian elite. Putin and his septuagenarian cronies may not feel the need to think about the long term, but the next political generation, many of whom are impatiently awaiting their time in power, have a rather different perspective. They don’t want to find that by the time they finally rise to power, they are simply managing a Chinese vassal state.
As with so many other issues, only those with the kind of access and impunity of a Chemezov can address this directly. Everyone else must instead rely on indirectly lobbying for a more robust approach to China. Industry bodies produce reports outlining the costs of unfair Chinese competition. Security services publicise espionage cases. Diplomats file lengthy minutes about Beijing’s ambitions.
So far, though, Putin isn’t listening. This may be a lesser issue compared with the effects of the war with Ukraine, and it is not in itself going to push the Russian elite into any kind of open confrontation. But it is one more irritant, one more crack in a system already under stress.
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