Vladimir Putin will meet his big brother in Beijing 

IN MARCH LAST year China’s leader, Xi Jinping, paused at the door of the Kremlin. Before bidding farewell to Vladimir Putin, he offered him a final thought. Using the phrase bainian bianju, shorthand for what China views as a historic change in the world order, Mr Xi said: “Let us promote it together.” Now the two leaders are meeting for the 43rd time—Mr Putin is due to arrive in Beijing on May 16th as the war rages in Ukraine. Russia has become an ever more important partner in China’s push against American might. Economic ties have been growing stronger and there are signs of deepening military links. So far this month America has twice tightened sanctions on Sino-Russian trade. Mr Xi’s government has responded furiously, urging the West to “stop smearing and containing China”.

China will be Mr Putin’s first destination abroad after a sham election in March that gave him a fifth term as president. There is a symmetry of sorts with the meeting in 2023. That came just after China’s parliament had given its rubber-stamp approval for Mr Xi to break precedent and serve a third term as president, and days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Mr Putin for war crimes in Ukraine. For both men their encounters are a display of contempt for the West’s efforts to hobble autocrats.

Mr Putin is a frequent flyer to China (see chart 1). This will be his 19th visit since he became president in 2000. A trip to Beijing in February 2022, a few days before he launched his full-scale war against Ukraine, crossed a rubicon. The two leaders issued a joint statement in which they attempted to redefine dictatorship, boasting of their two countries’ “long-standing traditions of democracy”. They backed each other in their struggles against “attempts by external forces”, by which they meant America, to “undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions”. Most eye-poppingly, when describing the Russia-China relationship, they said it “has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of co-operation”.

Whether there are limits to China’s support of Russia is now the subject of intense scrutiny by the West. In many domains the two countries’ friendship has been scaling new heights. America and its allies say Chinese firms provide critical support to Russia’s defence industry. China’s, as well as India’s, booming trade with Russia have been a lifeline for Mr Putin (see chart 2). The Russian and Chinese armed forces have been exercising together ever more frequently. Not long before Mr Xi’s trip to Moscow last year, America’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, spoke of a “cartoonish notion that these two countries have become unbreakable allies”. During that visit, a White House spokesman called the Russia-China relationship “a bit of a marriage of convenience…less than it is of affection”. The picture today belies those disparaging remarks.

Start with the flow of Chinese tech and other useful items to Russian manufacturers of weapons. During separate visits to China in April, America’s treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, berated Chinese officials about this. Mr Blinken told reporters at the end of his trip that China was the “top supplier” of machine tools, microelectronics, nitrocellulose (a crucial ingredient in artillery shells) and other items deemed by America to be “dual use”, meaning they have both civilian and military applications. “Russia would struggle to sustain its assault on Ukraine without China’s support,” he said. Later he told the World Economic Forum’s president, Borge Brende, that, during the past year, China’s tech had been enabling Russia to produce arms and ammunition, including missiles and tanks, “at a faster pace than at any time in its modern history, including during the cold war”.

Trade data support America’s view. Take metalworking machine tools, which are needed to make arms. Before the war in Ukraine, many of Russia’s providers of advanced types were from America, Europe and rich countries in Asia. Sanctions cut those supplies, prompting Russia to turn to China. In 2022 Russia’s imports of machine tools from China grew by nearly 120% to $362m, according to Chinese trade figures. In 2023 they rose again by nearly 170%. China’s share of these Russian imports grew from less than 30% before the war to about 60% in 2022 and 88% in 2023, trade numbers show. Writing for the Jamestown Foundation, an American research outfit, Pavel Luzin calls this dependency on China a “growing weakness and vulnerability” for Mr Putin.

China doubtless relishes this transformation. In the early days of the People’s Republic, before the Sino-Soviet split that began in the late 1950s, China leaned heavily on the Soviet Union, its “big brother”, for aid and arms. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an American think-tank, reckons Mr Xi’s trip to Moscow in March last year accelerated the shift. In a report on Russia’s defence industry, published in April, it said there was a “sharp increase” that month of Chinese shipments to Russia of dual-use goods that are designated by America as “high priority” (see chart 3). This means they are of great importance in the manufacture of Russian arms and are subject to tight export controls in America and its allied countries.
毫无疑问，中国对这种转变感到高兴。在中华人民共和国成立初期，在1950年代末开始的中苏分裂之前，中国严重依赖其“老大哥”苏联提供援助和武器。美国智库战略与国际研究中心（CSIS）认为，习去年3月的莫斯科之行加速了这一转变。在4月份发表的一份关于俄罗斯国防工业的报告中，它表示，当月中国向俄罗斯出口的被美国指定为“高度优先”的两用商品“急剧增加”（见图3）。这意味着它们在俄罗斯武器制造中非常重要，并受到美国及其盟国的严格出口管制。

Electrical machinery and parts, such as computer chips, make up the biggest share of Russia’s imports of high-priority products. Nearly all of Russia’s leading foreign suppliers of key military-related goods are from mainland China and Hong Kong, CSIS notes. Data compiled by The Economist show that China’s exports of semiconductors to Russia were worth nearly $230m in 2023, up from $157m in 2021. Its sales to Russia of machinery for making computer chips grew spectacularly in the same period, from a mere $3.5m to nearly $180m (see chart 4).
电气机械和零部件，如计算机芯片，在俄罗斯进口的高优先级产品中占最大份额。CSIS指出，几乎所有俄罗斯主要军事相关商品的外国供应商都来自中国大陆和香港。《经济学人》汇编的数据显示，2023年中国对俄罗斯的半导体出口价值近2.3亿美元，高于2021年的1.57亿美元。同期，中国对俄罗斯的计算机芯片制造机械销售额增长惊人，从3500万美元增长到近18000万美元（见图4）。

The high-priority list includes ball bearings, which are used in the manufacture of tanks. China’s exports of these surged nearly 170% last year compared with the same period of 2021, the year before Russia’s all-out invasion. China’s sales of them to Kyrgyzstan, meanwhile, rocketed by more than 1,800%. “While it’s possible that Kyrgyzstan’s domestic market suddenly requires ball bearings, the much more likely explanation is that these products are immediately re-exported to Russia,” Markus Garlauskas and fellow scholars wrote for the Atlantic Council, a think-tank in Washington.
高优先级列表包括用于制造储罐的滚珠轴承。与俄罗斯全面入侵前一年的2021年同期相比，去年中国的出口激增了近170%。与此同时，中国对吉尔吉斯斯坦的销售量飙升了1800%以上。“虽然吉尔吉斯斯坦的国内市场可能突然需要滚珠轴承，但更可能的解释是，这些产品立即被再出口到俄罗斯，”马库斯·加劳斯卡斯（Markus Garlauskas）和其他学者为华盛顿智库大西洋理事会（Atlantic Council）撰文。

A roaring business has also been developing for Chinese producers of items that are not on the list, but are still subject to Western export controls because they may be useful for Russia’s army. Take excavators, which are handy for digging trenches. Chinese deliveries of these to Russia quadrupled in 2023 compared with 2021. Large Chinese-made lorries have been helping Russia to keep its troops supplied. Sales of them to Russia last year were seven times greater than in 2021.
对于不在清单上的中国生产商来说，一项轰轰烈烈的业务也在发展，但这些物品仍受到西方的出口管制，因为它们可能对俄罗斯军队有用。以挖掘机为例，挖掘战壕很方便。与 2021 年相比，2023 年中国向俄罗斯交付的这些产品翻了两番。中国制造的大型卡车一直在帮助俄罗斯保持其军队的供应。去年对俄罗斯的销售额是 2021 年的七倍。

America is now ramping up pressure on China to stop selling the high-priority kit. On May 1st it imposed sanctions on nearly 300 foreign entities, including 20 firms from mainland China and Hong Kong. The Treasury Department accused them of helping Russia “acquire key inputs for weapons or defence-related production”.
美国现在正在加大对中国的压力，要求其停止销售这种高优先级的试剂盒。5月1日，中国对近300家外国实体实施制裁，其中包括20家来自中国大陆和香港的公司。美国财政部指责他们帮助俄罗斯“获得武器或国防相关生产的关键投入”。

It is unclear whether any of the Chinese firms were acting under the government’s direction. They included one in Wuhan, Global Sensor Technology, which had allegedly exported infrared detectors to Russia. Another, called Jinmingsheng Technology HK, is a Hong Kong-registered firm with an address in Shenzhen. It allegedly supplied pressure sensors that are used in Russian drones and missiles. On May 9th America imposed sanctions on several more Chinese firms for similar reasons. China’s foreign ministry insists its trade with Russia is “normal” and accuses America of aggravating the conflict in Ukraine by supplying that country with weapons.
目前尚不清楚是否有任何中国公司是在政府的指示下行事的。其中包括武汉的一家全球传感器技术公司，据称该公司向俄罗斯出口了红外探测器。另一家名为Jinmingsheng Technology hk，是一家在香港注册的公司，地址在深圳。据称，它提供了用于俄罗斯无人机和导弹的压力传感器。5月9日，美国出于类似原因对另外几家中国公司实施了制裁。中国外交部坚称与俄罗斯的贸易是“正常的”，并指责美国通过向乌克兰提供武器加剧了乌克兰的冲突。

In some respects Western countries can rest easy in the knowledge that there are limits to the China-Russia relationship. China is clearly mindful of the risk of escalation with America. In December President Joe Biden allowed the Treasury Department to impose sanctions on foreign banks involved in deals that help Russia’s army. Several of China’s state-owned banks have become extra cautious, either halting or slowing down transactions involving Russian entities. Trade between Russia and China reached a record high of $240bn in 2023. But having surged by 47% last year to $111bn, China’s exports to Russia have fallen in the past two months, by 16% in March and by 14% in April, year on year. Banking woes are likely to be a factor.
在某些方面，西方国家可以高枕无忧，因为中俄关系是有限度的。中国显然意识到了与美国关系升级的风险。去年12月，美国总统乔·拜登（Joe Biden）允许财政部对参与帮助俄罗斯军队的交易的外国银行实施制裁。中国的几家国有银行变得格外谨慎，要么停止，要么放慢涉及俄罗斯实体的交易。2023年，俄罗斯和中国之间的贸易额达到创纪录的2400亿美元。但去年中国对俄罗斯的出口增长了47%，达到1110亿美元，但在过去两个月里，中国对俄罗斯的出口同比下降了16%，4月份下降了14%。银行业困境可能是一个因素。

Chinese diplomacy is not all one-way, either. Mr Blinken has credited China with persuading Russia not to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine when Mr Putin was toying with the idea (Mr Xi is reported to have raised this during last year’s visit to Moscow). China did not appear enthusiastic about Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine (it does not recognise Crimea or Donbas as part of Russian territory, as Mr Putin claims them to be). And a total Russian victory may not be to China’s liking. It would risk focusing even more attention in the West on China’s failure to rein in Russia and on the threat that China poses to the Western liberal order.
中国的外交也不全是单向的。布林肯称赞中国说服俄罗斯不要在乌克兰使用核武器，当时普京正在玩弄这个想法（据报道，习在去年访问莫斯科时提出了这一点）。中国似乎对俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的决定并不热衷（它不承认克里米亚或顿巴斯是俄罗斯领土的一部分，正如普京声称的那样）。俄罗斯的全面胜利可能不符合中国的喜好。这有可能使西方更加关注中国未能控制俄罗斯以及中国对西方自由秩序构成的威胁。

Yet China is ultimately keen to underwrite the Russian regime’s survival. It would not want any outcome that causes Mr Putin to lose power. For one thing, he is just too useful in China’s struggle with the West. This is evident in the ever closer relationship between the Chinese and Russian armed forces. Since Mr Xi came to power the two countries have stepped up the frequency of their joint military exercises, and their geographic range. In March the Russian, Chinese and Iranian navies staged joint drills in the Gulf of Oman, the latest in a series that began in 2018. A joint naval patrol in August by Russia and China near Alaska was possibly their largest so close to the American mainland. It involved eleven ships, including destroyers and frigates. America’s navy sent four destroyers of its own, plus a surveillance plane, to shadow them.
然而，中国最终热衷于为俄罗斯政权的生存提供担保。它不希望出现任何导致普京失去权力的结果。首先，他在中国与西方的斗争中太有用了。这在中俄两军之间日益密切的关系中可见一斑。自习上台以来，两国加强了联合军事演习的频率和地理范围。今年3月，俄罗斯、中国和伊朗海军在阿曼湾举行了联合演习，这是2018年开始的一系列演习中的最新一次。8月，俄罗斯和中国在阿拉斯加附近的一次联合海军巡逻可能是他们最大规模的海上巡逻，距离美国本土如此之近。它涉及11艘船只，包括驱逐舰和护卫舰。美国海军派出了自己的四艘驱逐舰和一架侦察机来跟踪他们。

Russia and China are not yet preparing to fight alongside each other. In their latest annual threat-assessment, published in February, America’s spies said the joint manoeuvres had resulted in “only minor enhancements to interoperability”. They appear more a way of signalling the depth of the Russia-China relationship. One implicit message is that, should China and America go to war, America would have to reckon on Russia giving China indirect support, at least.

Given Russia’s difficulties in Ukraine, China may have concluded that attacking Taiwan across a strait more than 125km wide with troops lacking any combat experience would be a risk best not taken for a while longer, if hazarded at all. However, Mr Xi wants to show America that he is prepared to fight, and to get his country ready for that possibility.

Russia has a useful role to play here. Were war to break out between China and America, Russia could keep China supplied with at least some of the energy it needs, bypassing American-controlled maritime chokepoints by using pipelines and overland routes. Last year China’s imports of Russian oil reached a record high of 107m tonnes, 24% more than in 2022 (see chart 5). Russia supplied nearly one-fifth of China’s crude imports, making it the biggest source (the second, Saudi Arabia, shipped 86m tonnes). China’s imports of Russian natural gas rose 62%. Russia would like China to buy even more, through a proposed second gas pipeline called Power-of-Siberia 2. Talks have dragged on for years, with China playing hardball on the price.

Mr Putin’s war in Ukraine has not made life easy for Mr Xi, to put it mildly. It has focused Western attention on the need to bolster Taiwan’s defences, potentially making it even more challenging for Mr Xi to seize the island. It has made European countries more wary of China: its support for Russia (despite its avowed neutrality in the Ukraine conflict) is seen as an indirect threat to the continent’s security.

But if Mr Xi has any misgivings about negative fallout from the war, he will not let them weaken the relationship. He and Mr Putin appear genuinely chummy. They give each other birthday cakes, down vodka together and call one another “dear friend”. Mr Xi is also a hard-nosed realist. He values the friendship for the security it provides along their 4,300-km border (a vital precondition for taking on America—China has bad memories of its cold-war tension with the Soviet Union). Mr Putin also makes the Communist Party feel more safe: were Russia to be ruled by a liberal pro-Western leader, Mr Xi would fear contagion. At their meeting in Moscow last year, the two leaders pledged to co-operate in fighting “colour revolutions”, meaning popular challenges to authoritarian rule. This is not a marriage of convenience. For both men, it is one of vital, long-term necessity. ■