Moscow should be looking for ways to correct its course and restore balance in its foreign policy, instead of putting all its eggs in the China basket. But Putin is no pragmatic decision-maker, and the deepening vassalage to China is his own choice, writes Alexander Gabuev in an article for Carnegie Politika.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping met in Beijing on September 3, 2025. Photo: Alexander Kazakov / POOL / AFP / ANP

'Biden did something that was unthinkable. He drove China and Russia together. It's the one thing you didn't want to do because they're basically natural enemies', U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News after his Alaska meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. This week’s summit in China, where Putin was Xi Jinping’s guest of honor, does not support that characterization. Fueled by resentment toward the U.S., the China-Russia relationship is only set to deepen – increasingly on Beijing’s terms. America’s chances of reversing this trend remain elusive, and recent tariffs against India may only push Putin closer into Xi’s embrace.

In Trump’s telling, the partnership between China and Russia is unnatural, which may enable the U.S. to drive a wedge between the two. A key source of distrust is supposedly demography. 'Russia has tremendous amounts of land. China has tremendous amounts of people, and China needs Russian land', Trump told Fox News. The asymmetry between the vast and empty Russian Far East, home to just 7.9 million people, and China’s 1.4 billion population, is indeed hard to miss. Historically it has caused a lot of alarm in the Kremlin. But as China’s population has started to shrink, those fears have now been mostly alleviated.

By setting itself on a course of deepening isolation from the West, Russia has provided China with more leverage

Still, Trump is not wrong when he talks about 'natural friction' between China and Russia. Its root is not demography, but growing economic and technological asymmetry. While China has emerged as a manufacturing and technological powerhouse of the 21st century, Putin’s Russia is a pale shadow of its former self. And by setting itself on a course of deepening isolation from the West, Russia has provided China with more leverage.

Trade dependency

Before 2014, 80% of Russia’s trade was with the West, and just 10% with China. The bulk of investment and technology in Russia came from the EU and the U.S. When Putin decided to annex Crimea, he started to rely on China more to replace the dependency on the West. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 greatly exacerbated that process. Today Beijing accounts for more than 30% of Russia’s export revenues and provides over 40% of its imports, including goods that fuel the Kremlin’s war machine. For China, Russia’s footprint is smaller and thus replaceable: just 3% of exports and 5% of imports last year. 

As Russia’s estrangement from the West deepens, China’s role as a lifeline to Putin’s system is only set to grow. And there is no escape now. When Putin turned his back on the West a decade ago, he had China to fill the void. But now, even if for some reason he chose to pivot away from Beijing, there is no credible alternative.