The Beijing-Moscow Axis Is Much Stronger This Time Around
The Sino-Russian partnership is tighter than the Sino-Soviet one, with no reason for a split any time soon.
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese leader Mao Zedong meet in Moscow in December 1949. Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The growing strength of Chinese-Russian alignment—and how to counter it—is one of the major issues occupying Western strategic minds. It is commonly acknowledged that Beijing and Moscow have drawn closer together since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2022, with China’s economic and technological support of crucial importance to Russia’s war efforts.
But there is still much debate over how strong the Sino-Russian relationship really is and what drives it. Mutual mistrust based on the two powers’ difficult history still runs deep, and it is uncertain how comfortable Moscow is with its growing dependency on China. Beijing, in turn, has been put in an awkward position vis-à-vis one of its largest trading partners, the European Union, by Russia’s war. Some Western strategists seem to hope that Sino-Russian disaffection could lead to a split reminiscent of the famous Sino-Soviet fracture in the 1960s and early 1970s.
It is therefore a useful exercise to assess the strength of the current Beijing-Moscow axis by comparing it to the Cold War’s Sino-Soviet alliance. Oct. 2 marks 75 years since the Soviet Union became the first country to recognize the newly founded People’s Republic of China and established diplomatic relations with the new regime. In December 1949, China’s paramount leader, Mao Zedong, traveled to Moscow for his first state visit abroad. The two-month visit culminated with Mao signing a 30-year friendship treaty with his Soviet counterpart, Joseph Stalin. However, this quasi-alliance only lasted about one decade. In 1961, Beijing officials denounced Soviet communism as the work of “traitors,” and an undeclared Sino-Soviet border war erupted in 1969. Later, in 1971, China switched sides by aligning with the United States.
A similar collapse of Sino-Russian ties and switch of alignment seems much less likely today. When Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted in March that Russia’s relationship with China was at its “best,” he was not expressing mere propaganda. It is actually true. Indeed, by comparing today’s Sino-Russian ties to the past Sino-Soviet alignment along five key factors—geopolitics, economics, ideology, leadership, and institutions—it becomes obvious that the Beijing-Moscow axis is stronger today on all accounts.
First and foremost, the Beijing-Moscow axis now rests on a more solid geopolitical foundation. Just like during the early Cold War, their adversarial relationship with the United States drives them together. But today, the two have less to fear from each other than during the Cold War. The strength and global reach of Soviet military power made it a potential security risk to Beijing all throughout the Cold War. Today, China is the more powerful partner, but its limited geographic reach makes it less of a threat to Russia. China is in no position to encircle Russia. In addition, Moscow knows that China will be preoccupied for the foreseeable future with its naval rivalry with the United States, which reduces Beijing’s willingness and ability to flex its muscles on land in Russia’s neighborhood.
Second, whereas Soviet economic and technical aid dominated the Sino-Soviet friendship phase, Beijing and Moscow have formed an economic relationship over the course of the past decade that builds on the complementary nature of their economies. Russia is now China’s largest source of crude oil and its second-largest source of natural gas (after Australia), while China is Russia’s largest source of imported technology. Beijing and Moscow have also agreed on enhanced cooperation in sectors such as satellite navigation, space, and atomic energy. There is no denying that Western sanctions on Russia are an obstacle to their trade relationship, but China and Russia are reportedly trying to skirt financial-sector sanctions by switching to a system of barter transactions to facilitate trade.
Third, ideology mattered during the Cold War. A shared belief in communism underpinned the Sino-Soviet alliance. Ideological differences then helped propel their split, with Mao highly critical of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s post-Stalin reforms. Today, ideology is simply a less intense factor in world politics. It still helps bind China and Russia together, with both authoritarian regimes concerned about the ability of Western ideas to undermine their political stability. But it is difficult to imagine ideological differences leading to a breakdown of Sino-Russian relations today.
Fourth, leadership matters in foreign policy, and the dialogue between the top leadership in Beijing and Moscow is much stronger today than it was during the Cold War. There was never a great deal of trust between Mao and his Soviet counterparts, Stalin and Khrushchev. For instance, Mao was angered by Stalin’s demands during the friendship treaty negotiations, and he intentionally humiliated Khrushchev during the Soviet leader’s visit to China in 1958. The contrast to today was underlined in 2018, when Putin became the first recipient of China’s friendship medal. One should probably not put too much value into Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping continuously referring to the other as close friends. More importantly, the two have met more than 40 times since 2012, when Xi became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.
Fifth, the institutional links between China and Russia are both wider and deeper today than during the Cold War. When China and the Soviet Union signed the friendship treaty in 1950, their respective communist parties had close ties going back to the early 1920s. However, those ties were not frictionless, and beyond them the scope of collaboration was limited to the Soviet experts dispatched to China in the 1950s to help it industrialize. In contrast, even though the current Sino-Russian relationship is still mainly top-down, there are strong links across a wide range of government agencies.
At the highest political level, China and Russia have established regular meetings between their presidents and prime ministers. They have also conducted 18 rounds of strategic security consultations at a high level, most recently in Moscow in 2023, and they run a number of other intergovernmental commissions and working groups. The military ties between the two are now arguably stronger than ever. Since China and Russia first participated in a military exercise together in 2003, they have conducted more than 100 joint military exercises involving land, air, sea, cyber, and paramilitary forces. This level of joint activity across their various services contributes to cement ties.
The current Sino-Russian relationship is not all top-down; it also consists of expanded people-to-people relations, including local initiatives, academic collaboration, student exchanges, and tourism. These links have now developed uninterrupted for more than three decades since the Cold War ended in 1991. Institutional and people-to-people links by themselves are not a driver of alignment, but they do inform the stability of a bilateral relationship.
Given that the United States managed to play the China card against the Soviet Union in the 1970s, it is tempting to explore the possibilities of weakening the current Chinese-Russian alignment. However, the relatively strong basis for Sino-Russian cooperation just discussed reduces the likelihood of a Cold War-type split.
It makes sense for the United States and Europe to pressure Beijing to reduce its support of Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine. But any endeavor to sway China away from Russia more broadly will most likely fail, as Beijing’s Russia policy is driven, above all, by its superpower rivalry with the United States. It would be like attempting to woo the Soviet Union away from China during the Cold War.
In theory, a wedge strategy has a better chance of success if it targets the weaker member of the partnership. During the Cold War, that was China; today, it is Russia. But despite Western sanctions, Russia is in a stronger position now than China was in the early 1970s. When Mao decided to align with Washington, his country had been economically isolated since the split with Moscow in the early 1960s and had recently fought a border war with the Soviet Union. The incentive for Beijing to strike a deal with Washington was, therefore, high and the cost to Washington was low.
Today, however, Russia is much more aligned with China and greatly benefits from its strong support. If Washington attempted to woo Moscow away from Beijing, the Russian leadership would drive a hard bargain to extract a high price that would likely come at great cost to European security. But even a sweet deal allowing Russia to enhance its position in Europe might not be enough to sway it away from China. Why should Moscow abandon its strong relationship with Beijing when it does not perceive China to be a serious threat to Russian security? Moscow knows that Beijing is preoccupied with Washington. Would Russia’s total defeat in Ukraine and possible collapse of its economy change the calculus for the Russian leadership? Perhaps, but China would likely be much keener than the United States and Europe to help Russia rebuild its economic and military power.
The United States was only able to play the China card against the Soviet Union because of the Sino-Soviet split one decade earlier, with Beijing perceiving Moscow as a considerable security threat. The Sino-Soviet alliance unraveled from within—and not because the United States applied outside pressure or offered an irresistible deal. While the Sino-Russian relationship is unlikely to ever be perfectly stable, it is difficult to see anything like the Sino-Soviet breakdown threatening their alignment. In stark contrast to the Cold War, the current Beijing-Moscow axis rests on a solid geopolitical foundation with strong economic ties, freedom from ideological friction, strong relations between the two countries’ leaders, and a well-established web of bilateral and institutional links.
Jo Inge Bekkevold is a senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies and a former Norwegian diplomat.