Where the China-Russia Partnership Is Headed in Seven Charts and Maps
Beijing’s and Moscow’s relationship has strengthened militarily, economically, and diplomatically in the past two decades, demonstrating their commitment to a “no limits” partnership.
December 12, 2024 11:31 am (EST)
Over the past decade, China and Russia have deepened their diplomatic relationship despite a long and complicated history marked by both cooperation and strategic rivalry. Their partnership—the strongest it’s been in centuries—is driven largely by a common goal: to challenge the U.S.-led world order that has defined the post-World War II era.
In 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin said that their countries’ partnership had “no limits” [PDF] and vowed to deepen collaboration on various fronts. The announcement came days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some experts question the depth of their strategic relationship, arguing that the countries’ alignment is driven by their shared hostility toward the United States rather than by any natural affinity.
This year, China and Russia will pass the seventy-fifth anniversary of their diplomatic relations. CFR’s Robert D. Blackwill and Center for a New American Security’s Richard Fontaine dive into what this will mean for U.S. foreign policy in their new Council Special Report.
The following seven visualizations highlight China and Russia’s military, economic, and diplomatic cooperation in recent years.
CANADA
U.S.
Moscow
RUSSIA
MONGOLIA
KAZAKHSTAN
Beijing
JAPAN
NORTH KOREA
CHINA
PAKISTAN
SOUTH KOREA
TAIWAN
INDIA
The China-Russia border
spans 2,600 miles, including a
longer border in the east and
a smaller border between
Kazakhstan and Mongolia.
Growing Military Ties
China’s and Russia’s defense ties have been cemented since 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea. Their bilateral military exercises have also increased in frequency, scale, and complexity in the past two decades. Beijing and Moscow are jointly developing missile warning systems and boosting collaboration in space, including by integrating their satellite-based navigation systems.
Since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, China and Russia have held several joint military drills, which have taken place in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East. Since 2012, the two countries have performed bilateral naval simulations in geopolitically strategic seas, such as the East China Sea and Sea of Japan (often referred to as the East Sea). The seas include the Indo-Pacific first island chain, a critical formation for U.S. foreign policy that traverses the Japanese archipelago, Taiwan, and the Malay peninsula. In 2017, China’s and Russia’s militaries conducted a drill in the Baltic Sea, practicing live fire against land and air targets.
China-Russia border
RUSSIA
1 exercise
Baltic Sea
1 exercise
Bering Sea and
Western Pacific
3 exercises
CHINA
East China Sea
and Sea of Japan
(East Sea)
8 exercises
Arabian Sea
PACIFIC
OCEAN
1 exercise
South China Sea
INDIAN OCEAN
1 exercise
Complementary Economies
Although China’s and Russia’s bilateral trade has increased over the past twenty years, their economic partnership is highly lopsided. Russia depends far more on China than vice versa; China is currently Russia’s number-one trade partner, but Russia was only China’s sixth-largestas of 2023. However, both countries mutually benefit from their trade relationship. Russia relies on Chinese companies and banks for critical investment in its energy and telecommunications infrastructure, while China benefits from Russia’s abundance of oil and natural gas to meet its enormous energy needs. Experts call their relationship complementary economies.
More on:
Trade with China is 26% of Russia’s total trade
Russia’s
total trade:
$681B
Trade with Russia is 3% of China’s total trade
China’s
total trade:
$5.89T
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s exports have become a lifeline for the Russian economy, especially after the United States and European countries sanctioned Russian resources and froze Russian assets. In 2023, China-Russia trade reached an all-time high of $240 billion, compared to their bilateral trade of $147 billion in 2021 before the war in Ukraine. China’s exports to Russia also continue to growat an increasingly rapid pace, supporting the Russian economy, which grew by 3.6 percent in 2023.
Increased Diplomatic Cooperation
China and Russia coordinate in international institutions to expand their influence and reshape global governance in their favor. Since the founding of the Russian Federation, neither country has vetoed a UN Security Councilresolution proposed by the other. Indeed, the two frequently align in their voting patterns. They have dually vetoed sixteen Security Council resolutions, often against U.S. foreign policy interests, and Beijing has not opposed a resolution without Moscow since 1999. Of the twenty-three cases in which the Russian Federation exercised its veto power alone, China abstained twenty times.
They are also jointly expanding their global influence through newly developed “non-Western” multilateral institutions, such as the BRICS group and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). BRICS was founded in 2009 with original members Brazil, Russia, India, and China, and joined the following year by South Africa. The group has since grown to nine members, adding Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates in 2024.
BRICS communiqués offer insight into the foreign policy positions of the organization members, and their positions on Ukraine and the Gaza Strip especially resemble the preferred views of China and Russia. The same goes for SCO countries, which have supported China’s Belt and Road Initiative and have condemned Western sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
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