Putin landed in Beijing this week with a wish list. China has the leverage to grant any of it, or none of it.
The Russia-China "no limits" friendship is starting to look very one-sided.
The Pipeline Russia Needs And China Doesn't
The top item on Putin's list is Power of Siberia 2. It is a planned gas pipeline running from Russia through Mongolia to China, and it would double Russia's pipeline gas exports to Beijing.
Russia needs it. Sanctions cut off most of the European market, and Russian oil and gas now mostly flow east to India and China.
China is in no rush. Sergei Guriev, dean of the London Business School, told CNBC that Beijing has "consistently delayed" the project because it has built up energy stockpiles and diversified its supply.
"China has built substantial reserves of energy and can wait until the Middle Eastern conflict is over," Guriev said.
Ed Price, a senior non-resident fellow at NYU, said the leverage is plain.
"Russia has something that China wants. Russia has energy, and China wants Russian energy because it foresees a situation in which other energy is harder to get," Price said.
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Why Russia Is The Junior Partner Now
The optics matter too. Putin's trip lands just days after Trump finished a state visit to Beijing where the White House claimed wins on trade and diplomacy.
Price said Putin is signaling to Washington that "yes, you can come and visit China as much as you like but Russia is closer, and friendlier than you."
There is friction under the surface. The Financial Times reported that Xi privately told Trump that Putin might "regret" the invasion of Ukraine.
China's foreign ministry called the report "pure fiction" through Russian state news agency TASS.
Sitao Xu, chief economist at Deloitte China, said Moscow is hoping for "some sort of reassurance" from Beijing. China would like to know how the Ukraine war ends.
Worth Noting
The trade story tells the rest. Russia's biggest trade partner used to be the European Union, and after the Ukraine invasion, that flipped to China.
Trade between the two has doubled in the last four years. Russia now leans on China for tech, consumer goods, and factory goods it used to import from the West.
"Russia depends on China on technology, consumer goods, and manufacturing goods," Guriev said. "Russia used to have the EU as its major trade partner, but because of the war in Ukraine, Russia turned to China and doubled trade with China."
Putin framed the trip himself as part of a long pattern. "Regular mutual visits and Russia-China top-level talks are an important and integral part of our joint efforts to promote the entire range of relations between our two countries and unlock their truly limitless potential," Putin said in remarks reported by TASS.
The pipeline that would prove that potential is still on hold.
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