When Vladimir Putin met Xi Jinping last month, not even the extraordinary spectacle could hide the glaring disappointment of the visit for the Russian president.
Putin left without the prize he craved.
Speculation had been rife that the energy crisis caused by Donald Trump’s Iran war might finally push the Chinese into deals on a major gas pipeline. Putin claimed Moscow and Beijing were close to taking “a highly significant step forward in oil and gas co-operation”.
The 2,600km Power of Siberia 2, which Russia – a major energy exporter – has been pushing for two decades, would indeed be a game-changer, delivering 50 billion cubic metres of gas to China via Mongolia. Yet the summit came and went with no deals on the pipeline.
China’s President Xi Jinping laid on the red-carpet treatment for Putin’s visit to Beijing last month (Photo: Alexander Kazakov / AFP via Getty Images)Russian officials claimed there had been progress. But the Chinese made no mention of it, and that silence spoke volumes.
The elusive pipeline has become a symbol of the wildly unbalanced relationship, where China calls the shots. Putin, a man who invaded his neighbour based on a misguided idea of restoring Russia’s greatness, may yet achieve the exact opposite: transforming his country into a vassal state.
Why Moscow fears China
Inside Russia, there are growing concerns about this painful new reality.
In the 19th century, China was forced to cede swathes of territory to Russia, and Moscow has long feared a reverse encroachment along their shared 4,000km (2,165-mile) border. Chinese nationalists continue to claim parts of Russia’s Far East, while official Chinese maps that use Chinese names for Russian cities rile Moscow.
Russian fears have become more relevant since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when Western economic sanctions forced Moscow into a deepening dependence on Beijing.
Meanwhile, resentment and paranoia about Chinese motives are on the rise within sectors of the intelligence services, government and business community.
In April, Dmitry Trenin, president of the Russian International Affairs Council think-tank, revealed some of those concerns when he told one of Russia’s biggest newspapers that when it came to China: “It’s absolutely essential for us to maintain an equal footing in our relations and to remember that Russia is a great power which cannot be a junior partner.”
Russian spies dub China ‘the enemy’
Vladimir Milov, an opposition politician and former deputy energy minister of Russia, told The i Paper that China was “arguably the number one practical security risk for us”.
Many governing officials and high-profile businessmen had acknowledged the Chinese threat in conversations with him, he said. “They have been saying throughout these years that China is no friend. It’s more like our alliance is tactical, and they’re more of a strategic competitor. It takes a stupid person – which they are not – to not understand that we are very easy targets.”
A distant Russian flag in Blagoveshchensk in Russia’s Far East, across from the Amur River in Heihe, China. The area north of the Amur was ceded to Russia by the Aigun Treaty in 1858 (Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images)Sectors of Russia’s security services are also concerned about Chinese espionage inside the country, reports suggest.
One report revealed the existence of an FSB unit that called China “the enemy” and said it posed a serious threat to Russian security. An internal document from the unit accused China of systematic intelligence activities including recruiting Russian spies to access sensitive military technology, spying on military operations in Ukraine, carrying out espionage through research bodies in the Arctic and laying the groundwork to make claims on Russian territory.
Russia has imposed travel restrictions on defence-related scientists heading to China and has intensified surveillance of Chinese nationals. A classified circular in 2024 warned against “academic and commercial interactions” with Chinese firms and research institutions linked to the Chinese army and security services.
Yet publicly, Russia has played down China’s role in such activity.
“This illustrates the stark asymmetry in their partnership,” according to Chris Kremidas-Courtney, senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre. “China is confident enough to probe Moscow’s technological ecosystem, while Russia is cowed enough to downplay the intrusion rather than risk a diplomatic rupture.”
The headquarters of the FSB security service in central Moscow (Photo: Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP)Milov said there is a persistent appearance of denial within the higher echelons of Russia’s government and security services. “It is my understanding that this ignorance progresses as we go from the bottom to the top,” he said.
Those close to Putin, in the National Security Council and top levels of the FSB, were most willing to dismiss the risk, Milov added. “They behave, mostly like Stalin ignoring intelligence warnings that Germany would attack in 1941,” because, having burnt bridges with the West, they have little choice.
The trade trap
China has helped to prop up Russia since 2022, both diplomatically and economically. “The Chinese are, in the sense of the relationship they have with the Russians, a force-multiplier for Russian influence around the world,” according to Bobo Lo, former deputy head of mission at the Australian Embassy in Moscow and a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
China did not join global sanctions on Russia and has helped it access technology and goods it could no longer source from the West, stabilising its economy and supporting its military industrial base.
In return, China has become a major market for Russia’s raw materials including crude oil, natural gas, metals and fertilisers.
“No other country can simultaneously provide Russia with a giant market for its commodities, modern technology, logistical proximity, and financial tools to circumvent Western sanctions – all without any questions asked about the brutal war that the Kremlin is waging against Ukraine,” wrote Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
Bilateral trade turnover now tops $200 billion (£150bn), and from January to April 2026 it rose 19.7 per cent year-on-year. China now accounts for more than 30 per cent of Russia’s export revenues and around 40 per cent of its imports, compared with 16 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, before 2022.
However, therein lies the trap.
China has already used this to its advantage to extract cheap energy on terms highly unfavorable to the Kremlin. From 2022 to mid-2024, Russia was forced to sell crude and natural gas to China at prices far below those it had charged Europe.
Economic ties are highly asymmetric: for China, trade with Russia is far more modest: just 4 per cent of its global trade in 2025, and thus easily replaceable. Last year, Russia ranked only eighth among China’s trading partners.
China also now dominates key industries in Russia including vehicles, telecoms and technology. Moscow is near-totally dependent on China for machine tool imports for its arms industry – vital for its war – and relies on Chinese companies and banks for critical investment.
Moscow is well aware of the problems, Natasha Kuhrt, senior lecturer in International Peace and Security at King’s College London, told The i Paper. “The communications ministry expressed concern in 2022 that Chinese electronics giants like Huawei could eventually dominate the Russian market in areas like chips and network devices, and that Russia could end up being entirely dependent on China in future.”
Talk of Russia being a vassal state or raw materials appendage of China have also been around since the 1990s, she said. “And I suppose this is in some ways what has happened.”
Is Russia a vassal state?
For Milov, Russia is already “100 per cent” a vassal state but China is pretending publicly that it is an equal partnership.
“We’re still trying to collect all the crumbs from that Chinese table to still try to pretend we have some great alliance alternatives to the West,” he said. “They take all the economic and pragmatic advantages out of squeezing everything they can from us, but they behave like they fully, unequivocally respect us.”
Lunar New Year celebrations at Moscow’s Manezhnaya Square. Russia began its ‘pivot to Asia’ back in 2014 after its illegal annexation of Crimea (Photo: Hector Retamal / AFP via Getty Images)Yet, while the level of Russia’s geopolitical and economic dependence on China is “unprecedented in the history of their relationship”, claims of vassalage are an exaggeration, according to Lo.
“A vassal state means a state that essentially does the bidding of its patron power or state and that’s just not the case,” he said. “Russia is a strategically autonomous player. Putin does not do Xi Jinping’s bidding.”
Even so, China is already getting everything it wants from its relationship with Moscow. China prefers a flexible, strategic relationship with a capable ally that shares its opposition to a US-led world order, rather than just a vassal. It has no need to push Russia around.
“Russia is the nearest thing that they have to a friend,” said Lo. “Yes, it’s a deeply flawed friend. There are lots of limitations on the relationship, but this is as good a relationship as China can hope for.”
He added. “That’s why Xi Jinping pulls out the red carpet for Putin, describes him as his close friend, a great leader, and both China and Russia as a great power. There’s no need to rub in your superiority.”
Yet, as Russia is drawn deeper into China’s orbit, that could one day change. Divergences in economies and global outlooks, competition in the Arctic and in Central Asia, and tensions in Russia’s Far East could all change the calculus, and push Beijing to finally weaponise its huge leverage over Moscow.
That should be deeply concerning for the Kremlin.
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