Russia, China, and the Geopolitical Shift Amid Western Sanctions

This trip happens just days after Donald Trump wrapped up his own state visit to China. It’s all happening while the Ukraine war is raging, and Western sanctions are grinding things down. Putin’s visit is being watched closely.

That phrase got really prominent right before Moscow started the full-scale invasion of Ukraine back in February 2022. But four years later, the balance inside that relationship seems to be tilting increasingly in Beijing’s favor.

Western sanctions, Europe pulling back from Russian energy, and Russia getting further isolated from Western finance and tech systems—it’s pushed Russia deeper into economic reliance on China. Beijing, naturally, has become Russia’s biggest trade partner. The biggest energy buyer. A critical supplier of technology and industrial goods.

Against all that, Putin heads to Beijing looking for concrete wins. He’s chasing diplomatic backing, energy deals, and better trade arrangements.

A Powerful Ally Against the West

Putin and Xi have spent over ten years building up these personal and political links. Russia now sees China less as just a trading partner. It’s seen as its most important geopolitical counterweight against the West.

Ed Price, a fellow at NYU, put it this way to CNBC. Putin’s arrival right after Trump’s trip is probably meant as a reminder to Americans.

Of course not. But they also refuse to condemn Russia or join the Western sanctions.

“As long as President Putin has territorial ambitions in his West, which is Ukraine, he must have diplomatic success in his East, which is China,” Price said.

He added something else. It’s another way of looking at it. Putin is playing a long game. A long game for the Russian state. He’s bringing China as close as possible while dealing with what he sees as the real threat: NATO in Eastern Europe.

The relationship isn't smooth, though. The Financial Times mentioned some friction. Xi allegedly told Trump that Putin might eventually "regret" the invasion of Ukraine. But Russia’s state news agency, TASS, later shot that down. They called the report "pure fiction."

China’s thinking is also shaped by geography and security. Sitao Xu, a chief economist at Deloitte China, told CNBC that Beijing needs reassurance about stability along its northern border.

“Russia is China’s biggest neighbor,” Xu said. “We have this long border. If we don’t have to worry about security along the Western flank, that’s a huge relief for us.”

The whole summit is happening at a very delicate international moment.

But that potential thaw might not help Moscow much. A cooling down between Washington and Beijing could actually reduce China’s incentive to align too closely with Russia against the West. Especially when you look at how much China trades with the US and Europe.

The Gas Deal Russia Needs

The war completely changed Russia’s economic direction.

Western sanctions and Europe’s move to cut dependence on Russian energy completely broke that model.

China and India stepped up.

The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimated that China bought over $372 billion worth of Russian fossil fuels since the war started. This gave Moscow critical hard currency revenue, even under sanctions pressure.

This created a seriously asymmetrical relationship.

“The main deal Putin wants to discuss with Xi is, of course, the gas pipeline,” Sergei Guriev, who teaches at the London Business School, told CNBC.

It’s about the long-delayed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline project. This would move Russian gas to China via Mongolia. For Moscow, that pipeline matters because it could partly offset the collapse of Russian gas exports to Europe.

But Beijing hasn't shown much real urgency about approving it.

“China’s consistently delayed discussions about this pipeline,” Guriev noted. “It feels like they have energy security because they’ve diversified their sources.”

The project seems stuck. Pricing disaGreements, technical snags. Still, the wider geopolitical tension might actually make China more interested in those overland Russian energy supplies.

Analysts are watching this closely. Beijing is getting more aware of its own vulnerability to maritime disruptions. Think about the Strait of Hormuz, or a potential Taiwan conflict scenario.

Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote on Substack that increasing Russian pipeline capacity would "significantly enhance Beijing’s oil security in a Taiwan contingency."

Ed Price also pointed out that China sees strategic value in keeping Russia close, purely for energy security reasons. He argued that Russia holds something China wants. Russia has energy, and China wants Russian energy because they foresee a future where other sources will be harder to access.

Technology, Trade, and the Money Game

The most critical dependency for Moscow, though, seems to be technology and industrial trade.

Beijing hasn't exported finished military gear directly to Moscow. But reports say they’ve supplied huge amounts of dual-use goods.

That stuff helped Russia keep its wartime production running.

This sanctions environment made getting these technologies way harder and costlier for Moscow. Russia now has to use complex networks routed through other countries, paying ridiculously inflated prices.

The growing use of the Chinese yuan is another sign of this deepening economic dependence.

This whole push toward "de-dollarization" is also getting pushed around the BRICS group, which encourages local currency trade.

But analysts warn that "yuanisation" brings new headaches for Russia. As China’s role in Russian finance grows, Moscow is running into yuan shortages. Higher borrowing costs. Weaker bargaining power in those bilateral talks. It’s a tight spot.