No Limits, Hidden Limits: The Uneasy Reality Of Putin-Xi Ties – Analysis – Eurasia Review

The Putin–Xi meeting in Beijing, held against the immediate backdrop of Trump’s recent China visit, is meant to be a deliberate geopolitical theatre, displaying that China can engage Washington without yielding, and suggesting the nexus of global power now resides in this part of the world. For President Vladimir Putin, Russia wants to be shown to remain strategically anchored and resilient despite sanctions, battlefield pressure, and long-term economic isolation from the West. Together, both leaders used this opening to project the image of a greater synergy for a post-Western order.

However, the deeper reality is more complex. It is still a platform for the two powers trying to compensate for different vulnerabilities. China needs Russia as a strategic counterweight against the United States, but also at the same time does not want to inherit Russia’s war burdens and ripple effects. Russia needs China as an economic lifeline, but does not want to become a subordinate raw-material and resources attachment of Beijing. The relationship might be strong for now, but not naturally permanent. It is driven less by trust than by necessity, and it continues to be impacted by past structural, systemic and historical wariness and distrust.

Energy Dependence and Economic Imbalance

For now, energy remains paramount. Since the Ukraine war, Russia’s energy flows have been redirected eastward, and China became the most important buyer of Russian oil and gas.

Russian gas exports to China through the Power of Siberia pipeline reached 38.8 bcm in 2025, and became China’s third-largest LNG supplier in 2025, providing nearly 9.8 million metric tons, while China accounted for about 20% of Russia’s imported oil supply.

Yet, even China is not replacing Europe on equal terms for Russia. China still receives far less Russian gas than Europe did before the war,, and this is where it exposes the flaw behind Russia’s pivot to Asia. Moscow lost the conventional and premium European markets and is now facing China as a market that for now has more options and leverage.

The Power of Siberia 2 pipeline remains the example of the imbalance. Moscow places great importance on this as this will be a vital fallback replacement for the lost Western market. This urgency is not shared by Beijing. China would want favourable terms and pricing while also avoiding the trap of overdependence on Russia.

China-Russia economic relationship is also under strain. China-Russia trade fell to US$228.1 billion in 2025, after four consecutive years of growth. Chinese exports to Russia dropped 9.9%, while imports from Russia fell 3.4%. Sanctions, payment risks, weak Russian demand, and Chinese caution created barriers and limits.

In parallel, China still needs access to Western markets, technology, capital, and financial fallback. Beijing’s support for Moscow is therefore calibrated as China does not want Russia’s war to destroy its own global economic position.

Hence, the “no limits” partnership has limits. China and Russia share common platforms in opposing the US-led pressure, but they do not share the same interests and long term goals. Russia’s immediate priority for now is regime survival, war endurance capacity, and sanctions evasion. China’s priority on the other hand, is national rejuvenation under the 100-Year Marathon framework, regional primacy, and military and technological supremacy. Their interests overlap, but they are not identical.

The deeper problem on the outset for Moscow-Beijing ties is historical mistrust. Although public language has always been warm, Russian strategic calculation has never fully forgotten the Sino-Soviet split, and to a lesser extent, the demographic imbalance in the Russian Far East. Historical and structural factors create strategic mistrust, and wariness persists regarding one another’s true intent and underlying calculation, both sharing a border over 4,000km long.

Russian stagnation increases asymmetry, while Russia’s military aggression generates costs for China. The paradox for the ties now is that it is strategically useful, but psychologically uneasy. Russia wants China’s market, capital, technology, and diplomatic cover but is also increasingly concerned about Chinese economic penetration, technological superiority, and long-term influence in its traditional Russian sphere especially in Central Asia, the Russian Far East, and increasingly the Arctic.

The Arctic, East Asia and Southeast Asia Fault Lines

The Arctic remains increasingly sensitive and strategic now. China describes itself as a “near-Arctic state,” while Russia is an actual Arctic power with the capacity of geographical territory, bases, ports, and the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Moscow is increasingly uneasy about Beijing gradually normalising its role in the Arctic.

Russia has always seen the Arctic as a sovereign strategic space, anchored by dominance in territory, military infrastructure, energy projects and control over the Northern Sea Route. China, meanwhile, is increasing presence through scientific access, the Polar Silk Road, shipping connectivity and long-term energy investment for both energy and strategic security.

Moscow will conventionally need Chinese capital, technology, shipping demand and market access, as Western sanctions constrained Arctic LNG and energy development, but Russia is also wary of giving Beijing too much access to Arctic routes and infrastructure.

Beijing wants diversified routes that reduce vulnerability to maritime chokepoints such as Malacca and Hormuz; the NSR provides a new opening for this. Moscow still wants financing and customers for its immediate economic revival, but not a future in which China becomes the decisive economic actor in Russia’s own northern frontier.

This wariness is further carried into the sphere of East Asia and Southeast Asia. Russia’s greater foray into Northeast Asia through North Korea, and recent new attempts to preserve channels with Japan, South Korea and ASEAN, are not always comfortable for Beijing.

Moscow’s deepening military alignment with Pyongyang has raised further unease as Beijing has long preferred to remain the principal patron of North Korea.

The Pyongyang channel has given Russia manpower, munitions, political solidarity, and leverage in Northeast Asia. This messaging powerfully signals to Beijing that Russia has other reliable Asian partners beyond China. This serves a layered Asian strategy for Moscow; China for economic and diplomatic weight, North Korea for military support, and potential openings elsewhere when conditions permit and are in place, beyond Europe and China alone.

In Southeast Asia, the divergence is also growing. China’s influence in this region has been ingrained in history and is primarily economic, infrastructural and maritime, while Russia has further increased capacity on defence ties, arms sales, energy diplomacy and legacy strategic relationships, especially with Vietnam and Myanmar.

Russia keeps an advantage in certain defence relationships. Beijing may not necessarily welcome a Russian return to East Asia or Southeast Asia that dilutes China’s primacy, further heightens risks and complicates regional calculations.

Central Asia is another fault line that has long been brewing. Russia sees the region as part of its strategic depth and its own traditional backyard, while China has increased its strategic presence there with economic heavyweight ventures through trade, infrastructure, and energy routes.

Alignment Under Pressure, Not Trust

Ukraine remains a pain point for both sides. China will not want to see a total Russian defeat as a defeated Russia would strengthen Western confidence and further pivot US attention for the Indo-Pacific. Beijing also does not want the Ukraine war to become China’s war and hence. 
China’s support remains calibrated through economic support and diplomacy while officially denying lethal aid.

This reflects Beijing’s broader dilemma: it wants Russia to survive and distract the West, but it does not want to incur the price tag of being sanctioned as a co-belligerent.

For Russia, it has broader fallback options, including a thaw of ties with Trump and where future ties with Washington might just improve once conditions are met and once the Ukraine saga is winding down. Putin has a strong interest in new openings with Washington if they can reduce sanctions pressure, loosen Russia’s economic isolation, or create bargaining space over Ukraine and European security. This shows that despite the No Limits Ties, the US will not be overlooked at the expense of Russia’s own long term interests, and China will not necessarily remain as its most helpful and important partner.

This is why the Putin-Xi meeting should not be interpreted as a fixed deposit or the birth of a fixed anti-American alliance. It remains a flexible alignment whose cooperation is strongest where their grievances overlap, but weakest where their ambitions collide.

Putin and Xi are united by pressure, not by trust. They are aligned by opposition to American dominance, not by a shared vision of each other’s rise. Their partnership is consequential, and can challenge US power at some margins and reshape parts of Eurasia. But this partnership has yet to seriously rival or replace the American-led system, and it has not erased the structural suspicions between Moscow and Beijing.

It is still constrained by history, asymmetry and the hard limits of mutual dependence.