From Energy To Trade: Three Things Driving Putin’s China Visit

Last Updated:May 20, 2026, 08:39 IST

Putin’s latest China visit comes as Russia navigates sanctions, shifting trade flows and an increasingly complex global landscape.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in Beijing for high-level talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the visit comes at a crucial time for Moscow.

Coming just days after US President Donald Trump concluded his own state visit to China, Putin’s trip is being closely watched for what it could mean for Russia-China ties amid the Ukraine war, Western sanctions and shifting global trade dynamics.

Russia and China have repeatedly described their relationship as a “no-limits" partnership, a phrase that gained prominence shortly before Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But more than four years into the war, the balance inside that relationship appears to be shifting increasingly in Beijing’s favour.

Western sanctions, Europe’s move away from Russian energy, and Moscow’s growing isolation from Western financial and technology systems have pushed Russia deeper into economic dependence on China. Beijing, meanwhile, has emerged as Russia’s largest trade partner, biggest energy buyer and a critical supplier of technology and industrial goods.

Against that backdrop, Putin heads to Beijing seeking concrete gains in three major areas — from diplomatic backing to energy and trade ties.

A Powerful Ally Against The West

Putin and Xi have spent over a decade building close personal and political ties. Russia now sees China not merely as a trading partner, but as its most important geopolitical counterweight against the West.

Ed Price, senior non-resident fellow at New York University, told CNBC that Putin’s arrival shortly after Trump’s Beijing visit is likely intended as “a reminder to Americans that, yes, you can come and visit China as much as you like but Russia is closer, and friendlier than you."

The Kremlin is particularly keen to ensure that Beijing continues providing diplomatic space for Moscow as the Ukraine war drags on. China has avoided openly endorsing the invasion, but it has also refused to condemn Russia or join Western sanctions.

“As long as President Putin has territorial ambitions in his West, which is Ukraine, he must have diplomatic success in his East, which is China," Price told CNBC.

He added: “That’s another way of saying that President Putin is playing a long game, a long game for the Russian state, in which he’s bringing China as close as possible, while he is dealing with what he sees as a threat, which is NATO in Eastern Europe."

Yet the relationship is not without complications. According to the Financial Times, Xi allegedly told Trump that Putin could eventually “regret" the invasion of Ukraine. Russian state news agency TASS later reported that China’s foreign ministry dismissed the report as “pure fiction."

China’s calculations are also shaped by geography and security concerns. Sitao Xu, chief economist at Deloitte China, told CNBC that Beijing wants reassurance regarding stability along its northern frontier.

“Russia is China’s biggest neighbour, and we have this long border, so if we do not have to worry about security along the Western flank, that will be a huge relief for us," Xu said.

The summit also comes at a delicate moment internationally. Trump’s recent Beijing visit has fuelled speculation about a potential stabilisation in US-China ties after years of tensions over trade, technology and Taiwan.

Such a thaw may not necessarily benefit Moscow. A reduction in tensions between Washington and Beijing could weaken China’s incentive to align too closely with Russia against the West, especially given Beijing’s vast trade exposure to the US and Europe.

A Gas Deal Russia Urgently Needs

The war in Ukraine fundamentally altered Russia’s economic orientation.

Before 2022, Europe was Russia’s dominant export market for oil and natural gas. Western sanctions and Europe’s efforts to cut dependence on Russian energy severely disrupted that model.

China and India subsequently emerged as the biggest buyers of discounted Russian energy exports. According to DW, Russia exported around $129 billion worth of goods to China in 2024, with crude oil, coal and natural gas accounting for the overwhelming majority of shipments.

The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimated that China has purchased more than $372 billion worth of Russian fossil fuels since the war began, providing Moscow with critical hard currency revenues amid sanctions pressure.

This has created an increasingly asymmetrical relationship.

Russia urgently needs stable export markets and foreign currency earnings. China, by contrast, has greater flexibility because of its diversified energy supply chains and massive reserves.

“The main deal that Putin wants to discuss with Xi is, of course, the gas pipeline," Sergei Guriev, dean of the London Business School, told CNBC.

At the centre of discussions is the long-delayed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline project, which would transport Russian gas to China through Mongolia.

If completed, the project could deliver up to 50 billion cubic metres of gas annually to China. For Moscow, the pipeline is strategically important because it would partly compensate for the collapse of Russian gas exports to Europe.

But Beijing has shown little urgency in approving the project.

“China’s consistently delayed discussions about this pipeline because it has felt that it has energy security because of the diversification of sources of energy [that it has built up]," Guriev said.

The project reportedly remains stalled over pricing disagreements and technical issues. Still, broader geopolitical tensions may increase China’s interest in overland Russian energy supplies.

Analysts note that Beijing is increasingly conscious of its vulnerability to maritime disruptions, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz and in a potential Taiwan conflict scenario.

Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote on Substack that expanding Russian pipeline capacity would “significantly enhance Beijing’s oil security in a Taiwan contingency."

Ed Price also argued that China sees strategic value in keeping Russia close because of energy security concerns. “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," he told CNBC.

Technology, Trade And Financial Lifelines

Perhaps the most critical dependency for Moscow lies in technology and industrial trade.

Western sanctions imposed since 2022 cut Russia off from advanced semiconductors, microelectronics, machine tools and other dual-use technologies essential for both civilian manufacturing and weapons production.

That vacuum has increasingly been filled by China. According to Bloomberg, China supplied around 90 per cent of Russia’s sanctioned technology imports in 2025, up from 80 per cent the previous year.

China has also become Russia’s primary supplier of machinery, electronics and vehicles after Western companies exited the Russian market. In 2024, China exported nearly $116 billion worth of goods to Russia, according to DW.

Although Beijing has avoided directly exporting finished military equipment to Moscow, reports indicate that China has supplied large quantities of dual-use goods — products that can serve both civilian and military purposes.

DW reported that Chinese support has included electronics, industrial components, drones, satellite imagery and earth observation intelligence that have helped Russia sustain its wartime production capacity.

The sanctions environment has made access to such technologies significantly more difficult and expensive for Moscow. Russia increasingly relies on complex procurement networks routed through third countries, often paying sharply inflated prices.

The growing use of the Chinese yuan is another sign of Russia’s deepening economic dependence. After the US and its allies froze around $300 billion of Russian central bank reserves and removed several Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system, Moscow accelerated efforts to move away from dollar- and euro-based trade.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said last year that more than 99 per cent of bilateral trade between Russia and China was now being conducted in rubles and yuan. This broader push toward “de-dollarisation" has also been promoted within the BRICS grouping, which has encouraged trade in local currencies.

But analysts say “yuanisation" comes with new vulnerabilities for Russia. As China’s role in Russian finance grows, Moscow increasingly faces yuan shortages, higher borrowing costs and weaker bargaining power in bilateral negotiations.

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