Russia’s dependence on China increases amid Ukraine sanctions

BEIJING — Like a salesman buttering up his best customer, President Vladimir Putin gushed about China’s economic success as he welcomed Chinese leader Xi Jinping to the Kremlin.

“We even feel a bit envious,” Putin said Monday as Xi grinned.

That was more than idle flattery. China isn’t just Moscow’s diplomatic partner in opposing what they see as U.S. domination of global affairs. Its thriving economy is the biggest buyer of Russian oil and gas exports, pumping billions of dollars into Putin’s treasury and helping the Kremlin resist Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

Putin welcomes the lifeline, but that reliance is accelerating Russia’s slide into the junior role in an uneasy relationship with Xi’s government. Beijing has ambitions that diverge from Moscow’s and sometimes conflict.

“Russia may worry about increasing reliance upon China, but it has no other good options,” said Li Xin, director of the Institute of European and Asian Studies at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.

The current BeijingMoscow partnership dates to the 1990s, when they set aside border disputes and other strains that led to the 1961 Sino-Soviet split and forged a post-Cold War diplomatic front to push back against Washington.

For both sides, the importance of that relationship increased as Washington imposed sanctions on Russia and restricted Chinese access to U.S. technology on security grounds. Xi accused the United States this month of trying to block China’s economic development.

“There’s a feeling that the U.S. and American allies are out to contain the two countries,” said Li Mingjiang, an international relations expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

Despite “strategic mistrust” stemming from conflicts dating back to the 19th century, they share a “common political interest” of “resisting American challenges,” Li said.