Key Takeaways
- Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, China has become indispensable to Russia, giving Beijing growing leverage in one of the most consequential strategic partnerships threatening the United States and global stability. Rather than simply supporting Russia, Beijing is converting Moscow’s dependence into lasting military, technological, economic, and geopolitical advantages while avoiding the obligations of a formal alliance. China is using Russia’s reliance on its support to secure discounted energy, gain access to advanced military technologies, and absorb battlefield lessons from Ukraine.
- China has become the decisive external enabler of Russia’s war in Ukraine. China’s oil purchases help fund the Russian government. Dual-use goods from China and Hong Kong keep Russia’s weapons programs running despite Western export controls. China has also reportedly provided satellite imagery to support Russian strike targeting and trained Russian personnel on drone operations. China’s diplomatic backing provides Moscow cover to sustain its war in Ukraine.
- China and Russia have built an increasingly sanctions-resistant financial and economic relation-ship that has reduced, but not eliminated, Western leverage. Expanding renminbi (RMB)-based trade, alternative payment infrastructure, and layered sanctions-evasion networks have cut Russia’s economic isolation while deepening its dependence on China.
- The China-Russia partnership has become the central pillar of an emerging authoritarian alignment seeking to erode trust in U.S. alliances and partnerships, weaken U.S. influence, and reshape the international order. Beijing and Moscow increasingly coordinate across diplomatic, military, economic, and technological domains while using institutions such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to promote an alternative international order less constrained by Western rules and institutions.
- Despite unprecedented cooperation, the relationship remains one of strategic alignment rather than mutual trust, and real limits persist. Persistent frictions—including Russia’s unease with junior-partner status, divergent nuclear doctrines, intelligence concerns, North Korea, and competing regional ambitions—constrain deeper integration without altering the partnership’s overall trajectory.
Strategic Alignment
- China’s relationship with Russia is at the core of the informal “Axis of Autocracy,” the members of which seek to weaken U.S. influence, contest the existing international order, and expand the regional and global power of autocratic countries. Their partnership has become the central pillar of that alignment and China’s most consequential strategic relationship, even though Beijing and Moscow have deliberately stopped short of forming a formal alliance.
- Both leaders have prioritized the relationship, leading to a “no limits” partnership. After evolving from early Cold War allies to bitter rivals during the Sino-Soviet split, China and Russia normalized relations in the late 1980s and steadily deepened ties following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and resulting Western sanctions.[1] Frequent leader engagements—including more than 40 meetings between General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2013—demonstrate the priority both capitals attach to the relationship.[2] Weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing and Moscow capped this trajectory by declaring a “no limits” partnership.[3]
- The China-Russia partnership is now indispensable for Moscow. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has transformed the relationship: sanctions and export controls cut Russia off from Western markets and technology, leaving China as its primary economic and political lifeline.[4] This wartime support has resulted in Russia being dependent upon China across trade, energy, finance, and defense-related supply chains, anchoring the partnership at the center of Moscow’s ability to continue large-scale military operations in Europe.[5]
- China and Russia are increasingly synchronizing their diplomacy, military activities, and information campaigns to undermine the United States and U.S.-led international order. In a 2025 joint statement on global strategic stability, for example, they jointly condemned the U.S. Golden Dome missile defense initiative as militarizing space and fueling an arms race, even as both pursue counterspace and advanced strike capabilities of their own.[6] The two have paired this coordinated messaging with sophisticated joint military exercises, including the Joint Sea-2026 naval drills and subsequent joint maritime patrols in the Pacific.[7]
- China and Russia are working to reshape the international landscape in ways that reduce Western influence and advance an alternative order more friendly to authoritarian regimes. Beijing and Moscow play central roles in establishing and strengthening alternative institutions, such as BRICS and the SCO, while also coordinating within existing institutions to block or weaken initiatives related to sanctions, human rights, and other issues they characterize as violations of state sovereignty and noninterference.[8]
- The partnership has become structurally asymmetric, with Russia increasingly dependent on China while Beijing preserves wide strategic freedom of action. The dependency runs primarily one way. China gains discounted energy, select Russian military technologies, operational lessons, and a partner in challenging the United States and NATO. At the same time, Beijing avoids binding alliance commitments that would obligate it to match Russia’s risk taking or directly share the costs of Moscow’s aggression.[9]
China: The Decisive Enabler of Russia's War in Ukraine
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Sanctions Evasion
- China and Russia have rapidly reoriented their financial relationship toward China-centered payment channels, deepening Russia’s dependence on China’s financial system. The RMB’s share of foreign currency traded on the Moscow exchange rose from 3 percent in 2022 to 54 percent in May 2024 before surging to 99.8 percent after Treasury sanctioned the exchange in June 2024, effectively halting all U.S. dollar and euro transactions.[28] Subsequent RMB liquidity strains reported in Russia underscored that this shift leaves Moscow exposed to China-centered disruptions.[29] The financial architecture makes the dependence durable: Moscow can no longer exit the relationship without losing access to critical infrastructure for cross-border trade and payments.
- China’s financial system offers Russian banks and traders a lifeline. A growing number of Russian banks participate in China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS).[30] Though China does not identify participants by name, the number of financial institutions directly participating rose from 76 in February 2022 to 210 in June 2026.[31] CIPS allows Chinese financial institutions to more easily facilitate RMB trade settlements with Russia and obscure sanctioned trade.[32] By 2024, over 90 percent of China-Russia bilateral trade was conducted in rubles or RMB as both sides moved away from dollar and euro settlement.[33]
- Russia benefits from China’s efforts to develop an alternative international financial structure that evades the dollar-based system. CIPS and RMB settlement help blunt U.S. and allied sanctions that restrict access to SWIFT and other dollar-based financial infrastructure.[34] Small regional Chinese banks, siloed from the dollar-based system, facilitate payments on behalf of sanctioned Russian buyers.[35] These transactions are then layered through a network of intermediaries, further complicating sanctions enforcement and effectiveness. [36]
Military Cooperation
- Military-to-military cooperation between Russia and China has expanded in scale and scope over the past decade. Since 2003, China and Russia have shared expertise across air, land, and sea, participating in at least 119 combined military exercises as of April 2026.[37] Since 2012, China and Russia have held annual naval exercises, and the two countries participate in multilateral military exercises.[38] The two countries began joint bomber and naval patrols in 2019 and 2020, respectively.[39] In July 2026, China and Russia conducted joint naval operations and patrols featuring submarine and anti-submarine and drone operations.[40] However, despite this growing cooperation, the two militaries lack interoperability and are constrained by a variety of factors, including minimal experience conducting real-world joint operations.[41]
- Joint exercises have become more provocative. China-Russia joint exercises have become more provocative in recent years.In 2024, Chinese and Russian aircraft conducted joint patrols from the Sea of Japan to the East China Sea, entering South Korea’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) without notice, testing the readiness of the United States, South Korea, and Japan.[42] In a separate 2024 joint bomber patrol, Chinese bombers entered the Alaskan ADIZ for the first time.[43]
- For decades, Russia helped the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fill modernization gaps through weapons sales while withholding its most advanced systems. From the 1990s through the early 2020s, Russia was China’s leading foreign arms supplier, providing 77 percent of China’s total arms imports over that period and accounting for approximately $38.5 billion in known weapons sales.[44] This includes systems such as the 270 Su-27 and Su-30 fighter aircraft, Russian KILO-class diesel-powered submarines, and S-300 surface-to-air missiles, but not Russia’s most sensitive technologies.[45] However, as China’s defense industry matured, its dependence on Russian arms declined significantly. Today, Beijing is one of the world’s major arms exporters.[46]
- Russia’s wartime dependence is giving Beijing unprecedented access to Moscow’s most advanced military technology. Russia is now willing to share more advanced platforms such as Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 air defense systems.[47] Reports indicate there has even been cooperation to develop a missile defense system that would surpass Russia’s most advanced system, the S-500, and China’s next-generation Type 096 ballistic missile submarine.[48] If accurate, this cooperation directly affects U.S. naval posture and anti-submarine warfare planning in the Pacific.[49] As discussed in the Technology Cooperation section, reports indicate Moscow and Beijing are working secretly together on other next-generation military technology, as well.
- China is learning from Russia’s military experiences in Ukraine. China’s military has not had combat experience for more than four decades. Access to Russian training and combat experience, particularly lessons from the war in Ukraine, offers a valuable opportunity to improve the PLA’s operational concepts, readiness, and tactics. Reports indicate Russia is training Chinese soldiers in drone warfare and urban combat and may be sharing data on the performance of Western weapons and defense systems.[50] Chinese military journals suggest the PLA is interested in data on U.S. systems that Taiwan also uses, including HIMARS rocket launchers.[51]Unconfirmed intelligence reports note that China sent military observers into Russian-occupied Ukraine.[52] According to documents obtained by hacktivist group Black Moon, Russia agreed to train a battalion of Chinese paratroopers in airborne armored assault operations, providing the PLA with experience and operational insights directly applicable to a future campaign against Taiwan.[53]
Technology Cooperation
China and Russia cooperate selectively in emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence (AI), quantum technologies, advanced nuclear energy, and space. While both countries possess substantial technical expertise and state-backed research capabilities, China outpaces Russia on research and development (R&D) spending, investing roughly 2.6 percent of GDP compared to Russia’s roughly 0.94 percent as of 2023.[54] Russia’s research ecosystem has suffered additional losses since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine amid the emigration of scientific talent and cuts to civilian research funding.[55] In recent years, the relationship has begun to invert: Russia once supplied the most advanced technologies, but China’s research base, manufacturing capacity, and technological capabilities have now outpaced Russia’s in many areas.
Leaked documents indicate deepening cooperation on AI-driven weapons of the future. According to documents obtained by The Insider, China is proposing joint development of autonomous loitering munition swarms combining frontline knowledge from Russia’s war in Ukraine with Chinese AI systems and scalable manufacturing.[56] The presentations given at the Third China-Russia Military-Technical Cooperation Forum in Guangzhou also outlined cooperation in developing next-generation armored vehicles with AI-driven “active protection, uncrewed turrets, and integrated drone swarms.”[57]
Civil nuclear cooperation is expanding into next-generation technologies. Starting in the 1990s, Russia supplied the designs and equipment for nuclear power plants in China and later provided nuclear fuel.[58] China is now self-sufficient in significant aspects of the fuel cycle.[59] Four additional Russian-designed reactor units are expected to enter service in China in 2026–2028.[60] The countries are extending cooperation beyond conventional nuclear plants. At the May 2026 Xi-Putin summit, Rosatom—the Russian state nuclear energy corporation—signed agreements with various Chinese entities covering research into nuclear fusion, nuclear medicine, and photonic and quantum technologies.[61]
China and Russia are expanding space cooperation to improve military capabilities and compete with the United States. In 2022, Putin and Xi signed agreements to integrate China’s BeiDou and Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation systems by building and maintaining ground stations and improving interoperability and data sharing.[62] Further, leaked documents from a 2023 China-Russia military forum in Guangzhou reveal a Chinese-drafted three-tier escalation plan to neutralize Starlink through regulatory pressure, electronic warfare, cyberattacks, and physical destruction of satellites.[63] This cooperation could complicate U.S. operations through enhanced battlefield awareness, more secure communications, real-time intelligence sharing, and erosion of satellite communications for the United States and partners in a contingency. In addition, China and Russia are constructing an International Lunar Research Station under a March 2021 memorandum of understanding that will support scientific research and exploration, with Russia planning to supply the facility by building a nuclear power station on the surface of the moon by 2036.[64]
China and Russia also cooperate in quantum communications research. In 2024, Chinese and Russian scientists announced the establishment of a roughly 2,361-mile (3,800-kilometer) quantum communication link using keys transmitted by China’s Micius quantum satellite.[65]
Asymmetric Energy Relationship
- The war in Ukraine has entrenched Russia’s dependence on China as its primary energy customer. Energy accounts for around a third of total bilateral trade, with China alone accounting for half of Russia’s crude oil exports.[66] China’s purchase of $372 billion in Russian fossil fuels since the invasion has provided Moscow with critical wartime revenue.[67] Oil and gas revenues have traditionally accounted for between 30 percent and 50 percent of Russia’s government budget.[68]
- China aids Russian sanctions evasion but remains sensitive to threats of secondary sanctions. China and Russia oil trade relies on a sanctions evasion network that uses shadow fleets, disguised tankers, mislabeled cargoes, shell companies, opaque financial networks, and “teapot refineries” in China insulated from the broader financial system.[69] While China has refused to implement the G7 oil price cap against Russia, it still buys Russia’s oil at a steep discount.[70] There is a limit to the sanctions evasion risk China’s large financial institutions will take on: Chinese state-owned companies suspended purchases of Russian seaborne oil in October 2025 over fears of U.S. secondary sanctions.[71] China figured out workarounds, however, and its crude oil imports from Russia by volume ended the year down by only about 8 percent.[72]
- Russia needs China as a buyer more than China needs Russian oil. Russian crude oil makes up only about a fifth of China’s imports, but nearly half of Russia’s crude oil exports go to China.[73] Though China remains dependent on imported oil, it diversifies supply through imports from Iran, Venezuela, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf producers.[74]
- Russia is trying to expand its natural gas sales to China, but China is driving a hard bargain. Russia is the largest source of imported natural gas for China (via pipeline and liquified natural gas [LNG]), though it accounts for only about 20 percent of crude oil imports and only about 10 percent of China’s total natural gas use.[75] The Power of Siberia 1 pipeline delivers approximately 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to China annually.[76] Russia has prioritized a proposed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, which would add 50 billion cubic meters in capacity, and Putin sought a commitment from Xi to move forward in May 2026.[77] Xi delayed agreement, however, reportedly seeking price concessions given Russia’s weak hand.[78]
- China has leveraged the imbalance to expand strategic investments in Arctic energy and trade development. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting economic isolation from the West have compelled Russia to accept a greater Chinese presence in the Arctic—a region Moscow has traditionally viewed as central to its sovereignty and national security.[79] Chinese state-owned enterprises now hold a combined 20 percent stake in the U.S.- and EU-sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project.[80] China and Russia are also developing year-round commercial shipping along the Northern Sea Route, including a joint venture to manufacture ice-class container ships, with the first vessel planned to enter service in 2027.[81]
Friction and Limits
- Moscow chafes at being the junior partner. The same asymmetry that makes the China-Russia partnership so strategically significant also generates its most basic friction. As Russia grows more dependent on China for energy sales, technology, finance, trade, and diplomatic support, segments of the Russian elite have become increasingly uneasy about Beijing’s emergence as the dominant partner in the relationship.[82] This imbalance is already generating resentment in Moscow and will constrain deeper coordination.[83]
- Russia and China have different perspectives on some nuclear issues. Although China and Russia both rely on nuclear deterrence, they differ sharply in how they view the role of nuclear weapons.[84] China maintains a longstanding “no first use” policy, while Russia increasingly employs nuclear threats and coercive signaling as part of its broader military strategy.[85] Xi reportedly warned Putin against the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, reflecting Beijing’s unease with nuclear escalation.[86] At the same time, Russian military planning reportedly includes scenarios involving the use of tactical nuclear weapons against a hypothetical Chinese invasion of the Russian Far East.[87]
- Russia’s expanding security relationship with North Korea has become a new source of friction. The relationship challenges China’s longstanding role as North Korea’s principal external patron and one of its most important sources of influence in Northeast Asia. Russia’s June 2024 treaty with North Korea, which includes mutual defense commitments, was quickly followed by North Korea’s deployment of thousands of troops to support Russian operations in Ukraine, underscoring the growing depth of the bilateral security relationship.[88] Beijing’s restrained response, which emphasized that the two are “independent sovereign states” and that how they manage their ties is a “matter for themselves,” suggested unease with Russia playing a larger strategic role in a country China has long regarded as central to its regional security strategy.[89]
- Longstanding intelligence and security concerns continue to limit trust between Beijing and Moscow. Despite publicly portraying their relationship as a “no limits” strategic partnership, Russian state-owned defense firm Rostec has accused Chinese companies of intellectual property (IP) theft and reverse-engineering Russian products.[90] In 2019, Rostec said China copied “aircraft engines, Sukhoi planes, deck jets, air defense systems, portable air defense missiles, and analogs of the Pantsir medium-range surface-to-air systems.”[91] Reporting also suggests Moscow’s intelligence services remain concerned about Chinese efforts to recruit Russian sources, obtain military technologies, and gather intelligence in sensitive regions like the Arctic and Ukraine.[92]
- Competing regional ambitions continue to limit deeper integration. Despite growing alignment, China and Russia continue to compete for influence in regions both regard as strategically important. Chinese commentary periodically describes the 19th century border treaties as “unequal,” reflecting lingering historical grievances, while Beijing’s expanding footprint in Central Asia overlaps with an area Russia has long viewed as its sphere of influence.[93] China generally seeks stability to protect its economic interests, whereas Russia has often leveraged instability to maintain geopolitical influence.[94] These frictions constrain deeper integration but are unlikely to reverse the broader trajectory of expanding China-Russia cooperation so long as both governments view the United States as their principal strategic competitor.
Disclaimer: This paper is the product of professional research performed by staff of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and was prepared at the request of the Commission to support its deliberations. Posting of the report to the Commission’s website is intended to promote greater public understanding of the issues addressed by the Commission in its ongoing assessment of U.S.-China economic relations and their implications for U.S. security, as mandated by Public Law 106-398 and Public Law 113-291. However, the public release of this document does not necessarily imply an endorsement by the Commission, any individual Commissioner, or the Commission’s other professional staff, of the views or conclusions expressed in this staff research report.
Footnotes
In February 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security—in conjunction with the EU, Japan, and the UK—published the CHPL, a list of 50 export-controlled items subject to the highest-priority focus due to their potential use by Russia against Ukraine. See U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, Common High Priority Items List (CHPL), February 23, 2024. https://media.bis.gov/licensing/country-guidance/common-high-priority-items-list-chpl.
Though CIPS does have a native messaging system built into the platform, its payment settlement system is fully compatible and often used with SWIFT. Direct participants hold a CIPS account and can make payments accompanied by CIPS messaging, where indirect participants process RMB transactions through correspondent accounts with direct participants. Benn Steil and Yuma Schuster, “How Cross-Border Chinese RMB Flows May Weaken U.S. Sanctions,” Council on Foreign Relations, March 6, 2026. https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-cross-border-chinese-rmb-flows-may-weaken-u-s-sanctions; “What are the Types of Participants in CIPS?” Cross-Border Interbank Payment System. https://web.archive.org/web/20260731181142/https://www.cips.com.cn/kjjqgsyyingw/2025-12/11/article_2025121115151515220.shtml.
For more, see Graham Ayres and Lyndi Tsering, “China’s Facilitation of Sanctions and Export Control Evasion,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, November 14, 2025. https://www.uscc.gov/research/chinas-facilitation-sanctions-and-export-control-evasion.
The U.S. National Security Agency highlights several limitations of quantum key distribution (QKD)—the technology referenced in this sentence—to delivering secure communications and does not support the usage of QKD to protect U.S. national security systems. See U.S. National Security Agency, Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Quantum Cryptography (QC), accessed August 10, 2026. https://www.nsa.gov/Cybersecurity/Quantum-Key-Distribution-QKD-and-Quantum-Cryptography-QC/.
Endnotes
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