Putin is due to arrive in China on May 19 for two days of talks with Xi. Moscow and Beijing are expected to discuss bilateral relations, international crises and regional issues, and to sign a number of agreements.
The timing is almost demonstrative. Trump had been in Beijing only days earlier, and the Kremlin has made clear that it followed his contacts with China’s leadership closely. For Moscow, speaking with Xi after the U.S.-China summit is a chance to understand where the line now runs between rivalry and possible accommodation between Washington and Beijing.
In Daycom’s assessment, the real intrigue is not the ceremonial reaffirmation of a “strategic partnership,” but the extent to which Moscow is ready to accept its increasingly weaker position in this relationship. Russia brings China energy, confrontation with the West and military experience. China brings Russia markets, technology, industrial goods and diplomatic cover.
This partnership has not been equal for a long time. China has become one of Russia’s main channels of economic survival after Western sanctions. It buys a large share of Russian exports, above all energy resources, and supplies goods Moscow can no longer easily obtain from the West. For China’s own economy, however, Russia remains a much smaller factor.
That asymmetry will shape the tone of the talks. Putin needs more than a political photograph beside Xi. He needs contracts, energy deals, trade stability and a signal that China will not allow the West to isolate Russia completely. Xi, by contrast, can afford to wait, bargain and take what serves Beijing’s interests.
Gas may become the most important economic issue. For years, Russia has pushed for a pipeline through Mongolia that would connect Siberian fields with China’s interior. For Moscow, it is a way to compensate for the loss of much of the European market. For Beijing, it is a possible source of supply — but not one it wants to turn into strategic dependence.
Before the visit, Putin said Russia and China were close to a major step forward in oil and gas cooperation. Yet the long negotiations around a large pipeline show that Beijing is in no hurry. China wants discounts, guarantees, flexibility and the freedom not to turn Russian gas into a strategic burden.
For Russia, energy has become more than a source of revenue. It is one of the last tools through which Moscow can preserve international weight. After losing much of its western market, Russia has been forced to turn east. But the pivot to China is not an equal substitute for Europe. Where Moscow once had several major buyers, it now increasingly faces one stronger negotiator.
Beijing understands that weakness. China does not want Russia to collapse, because that would strengthen the West and leave Beijing more exposed to U.S. pressure. But China also has no interest in a Russia strong enough to dictate terms. The most comfortable model for Xi is a useful, resource-rich and dependent Moscow.
That is why the meeting after Trump’s visit is part of a larger diplomatic game. China is showing that it can talk with Washington about trade, Taiwan, technology and the Middle East, then receive Putin as its central partner in the anti-Western camp. This is not a contradiction. It is Beijing’s method: keep all channels open and raise the price of its consent.
For Ukraine, the meeting matters directly. The deeper China supports the Russian economy, the longer the Kremlin can finance the war. Even without openly supplying weapons, China helps Russia through trade, components, industrial goods, energy purchases and financial infrastructure that has partly replaced Western channels.
At the same time, Beijing remains cautious. It does not want to be drawn into the war so deeply that it faces severe secondary sanctions or damages trade with the West. That is why China’s support for Moscow usually looks less like a formal alliance and more like controlled assistance: enough to prevent Russia from losing quickly, but not enough to make China a direct party to the war.
For Putin, that model is humiliating but necessary. For years, he tried to present Russia as an independent center of power able to speak with the West as an equal. Now his strategic space increasingly depends on decisions made in Beijing: what China buys, what it sells, what its banks are allowed to risk and where Xi draws the red line.
After Trump’s visit, China also holds another advantage: information about American intentions. Moscow will want to know whether Washington is ready for new trade arrangements with Beijing, whether the United States may pressure China over Russia, how the American position on Taiwan looks, and whether Washington could use the China factor in negotiations over Ukraine.
Xi, in turn, will listen to Putin not as a junior partner in an old anti-Western axis, but as the leader of a state with a larger economy, deeper industry and wider diplomatic space. The phrase “no limits partnership” increasingly looks less like an alliance of equals than a political shell around Russia’s dependence.
Still, Putin is not arriving in Beijing empty-handed. Russia remains an important energy supplier, a military power with a large nuclear arsenal and a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. For China, such a Russia is a valuable instrument in global competition with the United States, especially at a moment when tensions in energy markets make stable supplies more important.
The Putin-Xi talks are unlikely to produce a dramatic rupture or a sudden breakthrough. Their real purpose will probably be to consolidate a managed inequality. Russia will receive confirmation that it is not alone. China will gain another chance to buy resources, expand influence and show that major crises can no longer be discussed without Beijing.
That is why this visit matters beyond diplomatic ritual. It shows what Russia has become after years of war against Ukraine: dangerous, armed and aggressive, but increasingly dependent. And it shows what China has become as well: a power in no hurry to rescue Moscow for free, because it understands the price of Russian weakness.
