Birthday best wishes rarely come freighted with so much significance. But when it is Russia’s embattled President Putin flattering his Chinese counterpart, Xi, even seemingly small gestures send a message to the world, not least to their Western rivals.
Members of Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade fire an 82mm mortar at Russian positions outside of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on May 19, 2023.
In Russia, China has been welcomed as an economic partner that is an alternative to the West, even amid fears among some that Moscow could become a vassal. China has supplied the isolated country with many products, as Western companies have pulled out of the market. It is Russia’s most important energy customer, buying more of its oil than any other nation and potentially becoming a greater consumer of its gas, now that sales to Europe have dried up.
The event had previously served as a showcase of the Russian market primarily to big European and American companies. This year, top Western executives were nowhere to be found. The event featured panels on the “dedollarization” of global trade and the economic potential of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional grouping that includes Russia and China.
“There may even have been a contraction from prewar cooperation, because after all, the U.S. sanctions need to be taken into account,” said Xiao Bin, a foreign policy researcher in Beijing, referring to Chinese investment.“It was a nightmare of the Russian elites to get that dependent on China,” said Tatiana Mitrova, a research fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
Despite the camaraderie between Xi and Putin, there are limits to the partnership that they memorably said early last year was “without limits.”
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