Putin should worry about the Trump-Xi relationship

Mikhail Khodorkovsky is the founder of the New Eurasian Strategies Centre and co-founder of the Russian Antiwar Committee.

The Russia-China partnership has no limits — if you believe the two countries’ leaders, that is. Reality, however, isn’t quite so cozy.

An uncomfortable marriage of convenience, theirs is a relationship limited by opposing goals: President Vladimir Putin’s Russia wants to tear down what remains of the post-Cold War international order and refashion it in the Kremlin’s own image. Whereas China’s contrasting gradualist approach to creating a Sino-centric global system requires preserving stability, predictability and the semblance of a rules-based order.

Putin’s in a hurry because he has a limited window of opportunity to play to his strengths by exploiting the divisions among what he calls the “Collective West.” However, his weaknesses are clearly visible: U.S. intervention in Venezuela, the Kremlin’s reluctance to defend Iran and the Assad regime’s fall in Syria in late 2024  are all part of a pattern — that of an overstretched, weakened Russia that’s becoming less reliable and less trusted among its allies in the global south.

And while U.S. President Donald Trump sometimes frames Russia and China as a collective threat to the U.S. — when it comes to the rationale behind his Greenland policy, for example — Washington’s actually much more interested in shaping global dynamics with Beijing than with Moscow.

The 2025 meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Seoul made clear that the Trump administration now sees value in separating the “Russia question” from the “China question,” and in building a pragmatic relationship of economic cooperation and Machtpolitik with Beijing. And though many experts dismiss this possibility out of hand, the Kremlin is worried by it — for good reason.

For Russia, the implications of a U.S.-China rapprochement — even if based on convenience rather than conviction — are profound.

Such a shift would relegate Putin’s Russia to the status of a secondary player on the international stage and sharply weaken its leverage — not least in Ukraine. The Russian leader’s dependence on Chinese supplies for machinery, equipment and the transit of goods essential to sustain his war has reached unprecedented levels.

Without China, Putin’s war machine would have likely ground to a halt in 12 months or even less.

That’s why Moscow’s reaction to the Trump-Xi meeting was predictably bellicose, with Kremlin-friendly television channels trumpeting the fact that Russia’s new nuclear-capable missiles could plunge the world into ecological disaster or wipe out millions of people in a heartbeat — a sure sign Putin was rattled.

True, the China-Russia relationship has strengthened significantly since 2022, and China has done little to rein in Putin’s aggression so far. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also reportedly told EU High Representative Kaja Kallas that his country didn’t want to see Russia defeated in Ukraine, as the U.S. would then concentrate its attention on Beijing.

But the maintenance of the Moscow-Beijing partnership rests on the assumption that both countries have more to gain in challenging and resisting the U.S. together. And that’s now in question.

It was Washington’s miscalculation to initially believe it could peel Moscow away from Beijing by offering concessions and engage China from a position of strength. But that strategy has changed, with Trump characterizing his most recent meeting with Xi as a “12 out of 10,” and enthusiastically accepting an invitation to visit China in April.

The U.S. leader’s pragmatic approach is certainly closer to Xi’s style, which opens the door for Beijing to achieve its goals regarding trade and hegemony in its own immediate neighborhood. Moreover, neither is inclined to provoke military conflict with the other. Trump, for his part, has vowed to curtail America’s “endless wars” — even if he bombed Iran and threatened several neighboring countries. And while Xi has his eye on Taiwan, he has every reason to avoid war with the U.S. because of the risks to the Chinese economy.

This is in stark contrast to Putin, who is locked into the logic of war in order to preserve power.

His absolutist approach to diplomacy couldn’t be more different to Trump. Every time the U.S. pushed for a ceasefire in Ukraine to enable negotiations, the Kremlin reiterated its maximalist goals and stepped up its air attacks instead. At least Trump appears to have realized he can’t force Putin to the negotiating table with existing sanctions or limited military pressure. However many “constructive” phone calls they have, there’s no deal to be struck.

At the same time, talk of Trump walking away from Ukraine has mostly died down in Washington. The U.S. leader remains committed to achieving a peace settlement, and appears to understand that Beijing’s leverage over Moscow now offers the best prospect of achieving this.

The question is whether the “no limits” partnership with Putin still offers greater benefits for Beijing, or if China’s current interests lie in a pragmatic détente with Washington and Europe.

With Europe eyeing the U.S. administration warily, China now has an opportunity to cement a long-term accommodation with the old continent. And that gives Europe potential leverage to persuade China to distance itself from an unpredictable “ally” and curtail the Kremlin’s neo-imperial aggression. After all, Beijing has no interest in Putin’s continued destabilization of Europe.