Ostensibly, Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s visit to China this week to meet with his counterpart, Xi Jinping, is taking place to mark the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Sino‑Russian Treaty of Good‑Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation.
But the timing of the trip — just days after US President Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing — is noteworthy, and highlights China’s influential position in a geopolitical landscape that is increasingly fractured and marked by great power rivalries.
What is on the agenda for the Putin-Xi summit?
The agenda is expected to include bilateral economic and trade issues, as well as discussions on international and regional affairs.
Amid Moscow’s isolation from the West over its invasion of Ukraine, China has become Russia’s largest trading partner by far, supplying more than a third of its imports and buying more than a quarter of Russian exports.
But the partnership reportedly also has military dimensions. A Reuters investigation in July 2025 said Chinese companies allegedly used shell firms to ship drone engines to Russian arms manufacturers as industrial cooling equipment — allegations Beijing denies.
Ahead of the Putin-Xi summit, Claus Soong of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Germany told DW that the current geopolitical landscape has placed Beijing in a notably advantageous position.
Both the United States and Russia now need China, albeit in opposing ways: Washington as a strategic rival, and Moscow as a partner with overlapping geopolitical and energy interests.
Beijing, meanwhile, does not need to lean towards balancing the US or distancing itself from tensions between Russia and the West, Soong added.
What does Putin want from Xi now?
Because Trump was warmly received by Xi and left Beijing on an optimistic note, Putin’s visit could in part be aimed at seeking reassurances that any progress in China-US relations does not come at Moscow’s expense.
For Putin, the immediate priority is to confirm that his close ties with Xi remain intact and to gauge Beijing’s current thinking. A more forward-looking question, Soong suggested, is who could act as a credible mediator if Russia were to seek an end to the war in Ukraine.
Recent signals — including a more subdued Victory Day parade and continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure — suggest Moscow may be experiencing war fatigue. Putin even suggested that the conflict could be nearing a conclusion .
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin has met with Xi frequently. For Beijing, the relationship remains a strategic priority, Soong noted — although the balance is asymmetrical, with Russia now relying more heavily on China than the other way around.
Facing mounting pressure in Ukraine, Putin continues to depend on China in several ways, Ding Shufan, a professor of East Asia Studies at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, said, including China’s continued imports of Russian energy, as well as access to dual-use goods and supply chains.
Whether Beijing might adjust its level of support — “like controlling the water tap,” as Soong put it — remains unclear.
What Beijing wants — and can get — from Moscow
“China does not want war; it is not in China’s long-term interests,” Soong told DW. China is therefore unlikely to exert much influence in current war zones.
“It may not be in China’s interest to see the Ukraine war continue,” he added, “but it would pose a greater risk for China to see a regime collapse.” Beijing would view the collapse of the regimes in both Iran and Russia as a negative outcome.
Soong argues that a weakened or unstable Russia would pose immediate strategic risks for Beijing. The two countries share a long border, and Moscow remains an important strategic partner for China. That means Beijing is unlikely to want Russia to lose too badly, even as it avoids taking on a more direct role in the war.
China has also been affected by tensions around the Strait of Hormuz and the resulting disruption to oil supplies. Given domestic challenges such as industrial overcapacity, China cannot easily export its goods if key regions are disrupted by conflict.
Analysts say the turmoil in the Middle East could make Russian energy more attractive to Beijing. Russia accounted for nearly 18% of China’s oil imports in 2025, compared with around 13% from Iran and roughly 42% from other Gulf countries.
Western sanctions have pushed Moscow to redirect exports eastward, while the US-Israeli war against Iran continues to raise worries about maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Russia needs the Chinese market, while China can secure Russian energy at a discount.
Putin-Xi summit: What to watch
“China and Russia are like a couple in the same bed with different dreams,” Soong said, describing their interests as aligned but not identical.
For China, one key aim is securing more reliable and sustainable energy supplies — without becoming overly dependent on Russian oil, which would give Moscow leverage.
While the meeting’s agenda is not yet clear, Soong says there could be signs of a possible cooling in the relationship.
There might be signed agreements, but the expert cautioned that for countries like China and Russia, such deals are often the beginning rather than the end of a process.
He pointed to the example of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s proposed development bank: first floated by China in 2010, it remained stalled for more than a decade and, despite a renewed push at the 2025 Tianjin summit, has yet to become a fully operational institution.
“There is no such thing as an ‘unlimited partnership,'” Soong said, referring to earlier rhetoric about China-Russia relations.
When Putin and Xi met in Beijing in early 2022, just before Russia invaded Ukraine, they proclaimed that their “friendship between the two states has no limits.” However, Chinese officials have since downplayed that statement, with Fu Cong, then China’s ambassador to the EU, describing the phrase as “nothing but rhetoric.”
Still, this does not mean Beijing and Moscow are not aligned. “If China is weighing its options between Europe and Russia, Russia still has more to offer,” Soong said.
Edited by: Karl Sexton
