With friends like these: the Sino-Russian partnership is based on interests, not ideology

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has not only shaken the foundations of the European security order, but will also have long-term repercussions on the future of international relations. While Ukraine is enjoying universal backing from Western states, Russia has received at least rhetorical support from its “strategic partner” China. Influential voices have cited this constellation as proof of a new global confrontation between democratic and authoritarian camps. Amidst the current “sea change” in German foreign and defense policy, calls are mounting to make this assumed systemic confrontation its new baseline. In this brief article, we aim to sketch a more complex picture of the Sino-Russian partnership, as revealed by the war in Ukraine. Based on an analysis of Chinese and Russian official statements and expert commentaries published since shortly before the beginning of the war, we find that it is fundamentally shaped by three factors: a partial and short-term overlap of interests, an underdeveloped normative basis further challenged by Russia’s belligerent behavior, and a pronounced reactivity towards US security agency. Accordingly, closer Sino- Russian alignment is not based on ideological fraternity or a symptom of renewed systemic bipolarity in global politics. Viewing it as such is also a bad guideline for practical policy, as it ignores the differences in both countries’ attitudes towards the status quo of global order, and risks pushing them closer together in further challenges against it.

Schlüsselwörter Ukraine-Krieg · Russland · China · Allianzen · Systemrivalität Russia's attack on Ukraine has shattered long-held beliefs that interstate wars are a receding phenomenon of international politics, at least for Europe. It has led to a fundamental reorientation in European defense policy, with higher military expenditures, NATO expansion to Scandinavia and a mission shift back to deterrence against Russia. A coalition of Western NATO states and several other highly developed nations has expressed clear solidarity with Ukraine, supplied it with weapons, and subjected Russia to a punishing sanctions regime. This stance, however, is by no means universal: while a large majority of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has condemned the Russian invasion, far fewer states have actually joined measures against it. China in particular has adopted a position of pro-Russian neutrality, refraining from actual material support, but providing rhetorical backing and intensifying bilateral economic contacts. Internationally, Beijing has reemphasized the "limitless" nature of its partnership with Russia; while domestically, it has adopted the Russian narrative that NATO expansion is to blame for the war, and actively censored dissenting opinions.
K As a result of this alignment, prominent voices in German and international debates have framed the Russian war on Ukraine in terms of an ideological confrontation. US president Biden has described it as part of the "perennial struggle for democracy and freedom", and cited it as evidence for a general confrontation between the forces of democracy and authoritarianism, the grand narrative of his foreign policy agenda (White House 2022). In her announcement of a new national security strategy, the German foreign minister Baerbock declared that an "alliance of liberal democracies" had formed in support of Ukraine, and would in the future take a tougher line in "dealing with other autocratic, dictatorial regimes challenging freedom, democracy and security" (German FFO 2022). China, doubtlessly the most prominent member of the latter group, has been accused of forming an "authoritarian axis" with Moscow, accelerating the deterioration of its relations with Western powers and necessitating closer transatlantic cooperation (Bond et al. 2022;Parello-Plesner 2022). NATO's new strategic concept, announced at the 2022 Madrid summit, similarly singles out the Sino-Russian strategic partnership as a coordinated threat to the "rules-based international order" and the values and interests of NATO members (NATO 2022).
In a situation that reminds many observers of the darkest days of the Cold War, attempts to grasp it in familiar terms of an ideological confrontation are understandable. As the Western community of nations reemphasizes its shared democratic identity, it is tempting to imagine powerful autocracies as its mirror image. However, as we argue in this article, such an approach risks mischaracterizing the scope and depth of the Sino-Russian partnership, the nature of its challenge to existing notions of world order, and most importantly, the way it reacts to Western security policies. Treating the Sino-Russian partnership as a rival ideological block or even "alliance" is neither an empirically correct assessment about current fault lines in world politics, nor an effective guideline for practical policy. Academic literature on the topic has long noted the reluctance of both China and Russia to form a genuine alliance, despite their shared opposition to US hegemony (Korolev and Portyakov 2018), and pointed to persistent irritants like their rivalry in Central Asia (Freeman 2018). If Western foreign policy proceeds on the assumption that a confrontation between ideological blocks is already underway, this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy that further reduces the stakes of authoritarian powers in the global status quo and increases the likelihood of coordinated challenges against it ). Similar to the logic of a security dilemma, actions taken in response to perceived threats can easily be interpreted as threatening by the other side and leave everyone locked into an escalatory dynamic. In this case, closer intra-Western alignment around a shared democratic identity and against a perceived hostile authoritarian block risks being interpreted as a containment or possibly even regime change agenda by states in the latter camp, actually incentivizing them to align with each other.
This article is intended as a short and descriptive take on the nature of the Sino-Russian partnership, as revealed through the lens of the war in Ukraine. It is based on a review of Russian and Chinese official statements issued since shortly before the outbreak of the war, as well as expert takes from both sides describing the nature and strategic value of their bilateral partnership. Expert discourses in particular are a useful window on strategic thinking in Moscow and Beijing, while the chosen time period situates them against the same backdrop that also triggered Western fears about renewed global systemic confrontation. We also (briefly) contextualize these discourses by comparing aspirations against observable developments in the bilateral relationship, especially in the field of economic exchanges.
1 Chinese views on Russia and its war: a needed, but increasingly erratic partner Much of the speculation about closer Sino-Russian alignment can be traced back to an event shortly before the outbreak of hostilities: on February 4th, during Putin's visit to the Winter Olympics in Beijing, both sides released a joint "statement on international relations entering a new era", reaffirming their "strategic partnership" and setting out the most comprehensive formulation of their bilateral agenda to date (Kremlin 2022). The statement raised eyebrows because it amounted to a twofold rejection of American (and more broadly Western) ideational and military hegemony: on the normative level, it attacks the agenda of democracy promotion and instead stresses a strict interpretation of state sovereignty and the attendant norms of territorial inviolability and political noninterference. And in the security sphere, it recounts shared grievances over the expansion of US-led alliances along their respective peripheries, and commits both sides to opposing them (Abb and Polianskii 2022). Against this backdrop, Russia's subsequent invasion of Ukraine seemingly gained additional significance as part of a coordinated challenge to the US-led world order. Attention quickly focused on China's position on the war, what support it was willing to lend to Russia, and how it might benefit from the refocusing of US attention to Europe. As we will show below, on none of these points did Chinese behavior amount to the support that could have been expected of an ally, although it can be characterized as pro-Russian neutrality guided by Chinese strategic interests. This, in turn, has shaped Russian expectations of the partnership, which are increasingly marked by fear of dependence on its larger neighbor. Accordingly, in both action and attitude, the Sino-Russian relationship falls far short of a coordinated block capable of sustaining a global systemic challenge.
These complexities and contradictions are evident from China's official, muted reaction to the war. In their statements, Chinese diplomats have expressed a general concern about the "situation" (later: "conflict") in Ukraine and noted local suffering and destruction, while studiously avoiding any mention of culpability (Chinese Mission to the UN 2022). In official settings involving Russia, the war is consciously played down-it is notably absent from the Chinese readout of a personal meeting between Putin and Xi Jinping in September 2022, and only received a passing mention in bilateral security consultations held in the same month (FMPRC 2022a, b). A resolution is to be found through bilateral peace talks, while all external parties are urged to exercise caution and restraint. China has rejected the sanctions regime imposed upon Russia and is not a party to it. Economic exchanges with Russia have expanded since the invasion, with Chinese customs data showing a 31.4% increase in total trade compared to 2021 (GACPRC 2022), mainly due to massively expanded purchases of Russian oil and gas. Exports have however risen only by 8.5%, below China's total export growth of 13.5%, owing to a wariness of secondary sanctions especially in goods with potential military or dual uses (Chorzempa 2022).
In the absence of real diplomatic or material backing, the most notable support China has offered its partner is propagandistic. From initial vague references to "Cold War mentalities", Chinese official rhetoric and domestic propaganda has taken an increasingly clear line of blaming NATO expansion as the root cause of the conflict (Koetse 2022). This served a dual purpose: domestically, it fit in easily with established narratives of US culpability for global conflicts; and internationally, it allowed Beijing to deflect criticism of its continuing association with the aggressor. These themes have dominated Chinese discourses about the conflict, mainly owing to an extensive arsenal of censorship and "public opinion guidance" tools. But they were also readily accepted and amplified because they match long-running Chinese perceptions of its own containment at the hand of US-led alliance systems, as well as suspicions that American agency is at play behind any adverse developments in global politics. The rapid deterioration in Sino-American relations since 2017 has caused these views to become even more preponderant, and in this situation created a powerful incentive not to alienate a partner like Russia.
Chinese experts writing about the war, its causes and the future of the Sino-Russian partnership have highlighted these strategic imperatives. The sample of voices below has been selected for representing mainstream views in line with official policy, and for the prominence and political ties of their authors. Their authors perform a dual role of directly advising government decisionmakers and promoting policies to the broader public. Accordingly, these materials often represent the best available window on strategic thinking in Beijing, since formal policymaking procedures occur in a nigh-impenetrable black box (Abb 2019). Due to prevalent (self-)censorship, establishment expert views serve to interpret rather than challenge standing government policies, expound on the strategic rationales informing them, and summarize the prevailing elite consensus. To better reflect the range of views within China, we subsequently contrast these takes with another sample of dissenting voices further below.
Somewhat similar to Western takes, Chinese expert reactions to the war frequently assigned it a greater global significance, which also shaped their discussions of how it influenced China. Zheng Yongnian (2022), the head of the Advanced Institute of Global and Contemporary China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and one of China's most prolific public intellectuals, has described the war as a symptom of the breakdown of the liberal world order established after the Cold War, arguing that its triumph already contained the seeds of its eventual demise: in his view, the expansion of US-led alliance systems directed against both Russia and China resulted in imperial overstretch and an inability to manage the attendant tensions. This also meant China could enjoy a period of strategic opportunity as US attention focused on Russia, but the author explicitly warned against using it to challenge US hegemony, instead urging a "constructive" and "peace-promoting" role to gain international support. Wang Wen (2022), the head of the Chongyang Institute of Financial Studies at Renmin University, similarly argued that US global power was fading, but saw the war as an opportunity to shore up its alliances in Europe, reestablish the relevance of a US-centric NATO, and access new markets for its arms industry. He was also skeptical about China's ability to benefit from the war or closer alignment with Russia, arguing that the US strategic focus would remain on containing China, a conflict in which Beijing would have to prevail on its own. Writing from the position of an "establishment intellectual" expounding standing government policy, Yan Xuetong (2022), the head of Tsinghua University's Institute of International Relations and one of China's most prominent IR scholars, laid out the logic behind China's "balanced" strategy, stressing the damages which the war had caused to Beijing's global interests and reputation, but arguing that implacable US hostility made it impossible to side with Washington over Moscow. He also saw a potential opening for Chinese leadership in the Global South, which had been severely affected by rising resource and food prices and might endorse Chinese suggestions of a peace without punishment to minimize further disruptions.
These views all share a focus on realpolitik imperatives, and accordingly make no mention of the morality of the war or association with the aggressor. However, the Russian invasion constituted a clear breach of Chinese beliefs in the primacy of state sovereignty (which both sides had jointly affirmed in their February statement), both in the fact that it violated another nation's territory and in its official justification as an intervention. Association with Russia also exposed China to major reputational risks and global criticism, as well as weighing on its already-tense relations with supporters of Ukraine. Despite strong barriers against domestic criticism of China's official policy on the war, a smaller group of Chinese scholars has made these points explicit, demanding greater coherence between rhetoric and action and questioning the strategic premise of the Sino-Russian partnership.
Xiao Bin (2022), a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute for Russian Studies, explicitly challenged the "limitless" nature of the Sino-Russian relationship, arguing that China's national interest dictated diplomatic flexibility and autarky instead of overreliance on a single partner. He also criticized it on normative grounds, pointing out the contradiction between China's stated pacifist and sovereignty-centric diplomatic ideals with a blatant assault on the independence of a foreign country, instead urging it show leadership by "defending international justice". In an (ultimately censored) commentary, Sun Liping (2022), a former professor at Tsinghua University, went even further in dismissing Russia's attractiveness as a partner, arguing that the country was a rapidly declining power led by an increasingly erratic Putin. Moreover, Russia was undeniably in the wrong, and global outrage over its actions had triggered the emergence of a coalition that could easily turn against China as its ultimate target.
Despite the diversity in these views, their points of consensus can be summed up like this: first, they do not endorse Russia's war, and tacitly or explicitly admit that it violates Chinese principles. Second, even proponents of China's partnership with Russia describe it purely in terms of strategic utility, as a means to dissipate and resist American power. Third, they see the war as a net negative or at least significant challenge for China, and agree that a quick peace would be preferable to drawn-out conflict. In all of these points, Chinese attitudes towards Russia are far more lukewarm than the robust support which Ukraine has received from Western nations, and fall well short of what could be expected of an ally.

Russian discourses on China: between a marriage of (in)convenience and strategic autonomy
With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Russia's view of China has undergone remarkable changes-and still remains in a state of flux. As in China, Russian foreign policy commentators serve a dual role of advising government decision-makers and promoting policies to the broader public. Regime closeness means that they are usually fairly unanimous in their support of its foreign policy; however, the most recent turn towards Beijing has exposed split opinions. For instance, in 2020, Sergey Karaganov, a leading Russian foreign policy expert (quoted in Liik 2021) was claiming that "China needs to dissolve itself in Eurasia the way Germany dissolved itself in the EU-otherwise, we'll have problems". Now however, Karaganov (2022b) argues that: "Russia has created a de facto alliance with China that significantly strengthens the position of both countries in the world system. [...] With its turn to the East, Russia has significantly changed the balance of power in its favor vis-àvis the West". This shift is emblematic of a new appreciation of China's value for Russia, but also of much greater expectations of support-and numerous signs of half-hidden irritation in the Kremlin indicate that Moscow has been disappointed with what it has received from Beijing so far. In March 2022, shortly after the outbreak of the war, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underlined that Russia "appreciates the balanced and unbiased position of Chinese friends on the situation in and around Ukraine" and hopes that "economic ties with China will grow even faster" (Lavrov 2022a). Yet, as the leading Russian sanctions expert Ivan Timofeev (2022a) notes, Russia did not expect that numerous Chinese private banks would suspend their activities in Russia, or the departure of big companies like Huawei. Despite Russian requests, China has not provided any military aid either, forcing Russia to procure ammunition in the countries like Iran or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as a leading Russian North Korea expert Andrey Lankov (2022) points out. While Moscow openly declares the necessity of Chinese support, Beijing is increasingly cautious of providing assistance to Russia and getting involved in the conflict at large. These expectations of support had mainly been based on what Russian observers considered a shared strategic interest in confronting US pressure: "I am absolutely sure that China will help us [in the conflict with the West] ... since if Russia falters, China's position will weaken dramatically. And they are well aware of this"-said Karaganov (2022b). And since, as Fyodor Lukyanov (2022), Chief Editor of the renowned Russia in Global Affairs Journal asserts, "China's participation or nonparticipation in the conflict ... is absolutely fundamental for Russia", the latter tried to enlist Chinese aid with strategic incentives like a secure food supply or fossil fuels at a knock-down price, in times of global shortages for both. In exchange, Russia expects its Chinese partners to a) replace Western imports, especially hightech goods and industrial equipment (these include electronics, equipment for oil refining, various types of machine tools, machines and parts for them); b) provide a market for Russian exports to replace lost business with the EU; and c) offer an alternative mechanism for conducting financial transactions with foreign partners after being disconnected from SWIFT (Timofeev 2022b).
Beyond short-term needs for Chinese cooperation over Ukraine, however, opinions in Russia are split over the desirability of a genuine "alliance" with China, at least in the traditional sense. In 2020, Putin himself refused to publicly confirm or rule out the possibility of an alliance with China (Putin 2020). Vassily Kashin (2022), a leading China expert at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, notes that the prospect of a possible military alliance with China remains quite unlikely in the near future. Lukyanov (2022) expounded further on this point, expressing fears that if military cooperation were to deepen, it might come at the cost of constraining Russia's room for maneuver in relations with other traditional partners like India or Vietnam, which are engaged in territorial disputes with China. Even Karaganov (2022a), despite his open endorsement of a pro-Chinese turn in Russian foreign policy, still notes that the Kremlin "should also understand that, first and foremost, they [China] are looking out for their own interests, not ours".
Thus, despite the rhetoric describing the Sino-Russian partnership as "limitless", Russian experts underline several factors inhibiting closer alignment. First, Russian elites are increasingly wary of a growing imbalance between a declining Russia and rising China, an issue that might lead to one-sided dependence on their larger neighbor. The director of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) Andrey Kortunov asserts that Russia's elites have little appetite to serve as "China's junior partner", and yet for Moscow now "China became the only game in town" (quoted in Lau 2022). Alexander Gabuev (2022), a former fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center (closed after the outbreak of the war under the pretext of "violating NGO laws"), argued that "Russia has failed in forcing Beijing to definitely take its side in the conflict around Ukraine ... as Russia's hand is getting weaker by day". Second, Russian strategic elites are also concerned that the relationship is heavily based on the personal rapport of the top leaders, with barely any institutionalization or social ties resembling the trans-Atlantic community (Timofeev 2022a). Should this personal understanding start to wane, e.g., due to the departure of one of the presidents, momentum is likely to stall. Third, a more formal, binding and institutionalized military cooperation with China would run counter to Russia's foreign policy doctrine (Polianskii 2021). In 2014, Putin prominently said: "Russia is fortunately not a member of any alliance. This is a guarantee of our sovereignty... any nation that is part of an alliance, gives up part of its sovereignty" (Putin 2014). This view has remained unchanged, which makes the possibility of a genuine alliance rather fanciful.
Finally, China's growing economic presence in post-Soviet Eurasia and its forays into the Arctic posit challenges to Russia's perceived security space, which gives rise to similar concerns as those which Russia voiced about Western encroachment on its European sphere of influence (Polianskii 2022). These have not yet resulted in open frictions, but speak to a sense of strategic distrust, indicating that Russia has no answer to China's initiatives in these regions which bodes ill for an eyelevel relationship. As one of the leading commentators on Russian foreign policy, former director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, Dmitri Trenin (2020) notes, "Russia approaches the development of relations with China in general and specifically in the Arctic very cautiously, seeking to protect its sovereignty". All in all, in the eyes of Russia's expert community, two states are not anywhere close to developing a common strategy neither on a regional nor on a global level. Despite sharing, in the words of Foreign Minister Lavrov (2022b), a mutual goal of "preventing U.S. dominance in the world", there are some serious differences in the specific ways and instruments for achieving it. With its war in Ukraine, Russia posed a direct and fundamental challenge to the status quo, whereas China seems to be more interested in maintaining or incrementally changing it.
Russian views on the relationship with China can be summarized as follows: first, the outbreak of the war and resulting Western sanctions have increased the attractiveness of a pivot to the East, which is however yet to yield significant benefits. Despite drastic restrictions on public debates and dissent, Russia's expert community remains wary of the prospects of the officially declared strategic partnership with China, as this would be incompatible with Russia's deeply rooted need to be an independent, front-rank great power. Despite the Kremlin's general desire to forge closer relations with Beijing, their utility is largely based on considerations of strategic convenience, fraught with fears of growing asymmetry, and marked by distrust. Both sides are currently lacking a common strategy (let alone a shared ideological basis) for challenging the US-led global order, and have so far demonstrated poor coordination over specific moves like Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Similar to the Chinese perspectives above, discussions revolve around short-term strategic costs and benefits, with few references to a shared identity or an agenda that goes much beyond resisting US hegemony.

Conclusion
As shown above, Chinese and Russian perceptions of their mutual partnership are far more pessimistic and skeptical than could be expected of an emerging alliance. We close here with three key findings that we expect to shape the future of Sino-Russian relations, and which may serve to dispel some overblown fears surrounding these ties.
First, the Sino-Russian partnership is based on, at best, partially overlapping interests, and the Ukraine war has actually highlighted some of their differences. Chinese observers are keenly aware of the damages which the war has caused to China's interests and international image, and are split about long-term strategic ramifications. Meanwhile, Russian expectations of China as an economic lifeline to escape Western sanctions have not been met, and the role of a resource supplier to China's booming market is ultimately not an attractive one. In the realm of security, cooperation is ongoing in areas like arms sales and joint exercises. But ultimately, neither side is willing to link its own security to the other-a fundamental precondition for an alliance.
Second, Sino-Russian ties lack a genuine normative basis, let alone a shared positive vision for an alternative world order. While the joint statement both sides issued on the eve of the Beijing Olympics formulated a sovereignty-centric catalogue of principles that has previously enabled cooperation, e.g., at the UN level, Russia's war on Ukraine constituted an obvious violation of these norms (and not the first). On the Chinese side, this point was made explicit by some experts casting Russia as a highly problematic partner, while even the more regime-aligned voices are unwilling to endorse the war or its purported justification. On the Russian side, sovereignty is mainly conceptualized as Russia's own freedom to action, which could easily be compromised by dependency on the larger and more dynamic China. Crucially, we found no references to a shared identity as authoritarian states on either side-a striking difference to the Western community of states, and reason not to view this partnership through an ideological lens. Instead of an "authoritarian axis" between states, this relationship at best resembles a personal "alliance of autocrats", which is much more fragile and unpredictable.
Third, the fact that China and Russia have aligned more closely despite these problems can be attributed to shared perceptions of US-led encroachment on their external security spaces and challenges to their domestic regimes. This pressure, and the strategic imperative to jointly resist it, is the lone constant in the diverse voices featured above, and the most powerful argument for closer alignment. The Sino-Russian partnership has evolved in reaction to the policies of the US and its local security partners, and is likely to remain highly responsive to their future initiatives.
This has an obvious consequence: treating China and Russia as an anti-Western authoritarian block risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, where increasing Western pressure and closer alignment between the authoritarian great powers drive each other in a vicious circle. Instead, Western policymakers should take a close look at what sets both countries apart, and devise separate, specifically tailored policies in response. This particularly concerns China's much greater stake in the status quo, support for basic international norms of sovereignty and territorial inviolability, and interest in maintaining a peaceful international environment for its own development. It is unlikely that any Western policy could induce China to join international condemnation of Russia, but the fact that Beijing is not materially supporting the war effort should be acknowledged as a positive. An approach that downplays ideological differences and instead rewards or punishes actual Chinese behavior is more likely to keep it from following down the Russian path. Finally, for a long-term strategy aimed at limiting further cooperation between both powers, a China policy that stresses the benefits of links with the West is a more promising approach than increasing the costs of association with Russia.
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
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