China and Russia: a Master–Vassal Pact Against Common Enemies

Military-Technological Partnership: Joint Covert Programs

Over the past year, cooperation between China and Russia on the military-technological track has visibly intensified. Beyond more frequent contacts through the defense ministries, security agencies, and security councils, a multi-track program of military partnership is taking shape. Strategic talks are being held at the highest level, with Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and Security Council Secretary and former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu actively participating on the Russian side, and their Chinese counterparts including Defense Minister Dong Jun, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Politburo member and overseer of Chinese intelligence services Chen Wenqing, and Zhang Youxia, recently removed from his post as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. The detailed content of these meetings is usually unknown and limited to boilerplate language about deepening cooperation. But strategic priorities are sometimes stated more explicitly: during a meeting in Moscow in November 2025, Belousov said that “his ministry hoped to work with China to ‘develop a new cooperation blueprint’ for defense,” (1) later specifying at a January 2026 meeting that the aim was to “deepen practical cooperation in areas such as joint operations and personnel training.” (2) Sergei Shoigu, for his part, explicitly highlighted the two sides’ interest in the Starlink network, stating that

“all modern information and communication technologies are being used to destabilize the sociopolitical situation by manipulating public opinion, including illegally imported Starlink and OneWeb terminals,” (3)

and proposing an alternative:

“the use of the low-orbit satellite system that Russia is building.”

All these statements are consistent with numerous leaks and investigations into the current China-Russia military program. Its components include at least the following:

1. bilateral military training, including a training program focused on drone use and counter-drone operations, as well as radiological, chemical, and biological protection (up to 200 personnel; a July 2025 agreement) (4), (5) and Russian training of a Chinese airborne battalion for a Taiwan scenario (2023 contracts; September 2025) (6);

2. cooperation in at least five weapons categories, including “space weapons and satellite destruction, integrated air and missile defense systems, autonomous 'swarm-mode' loitering munitions, next-generation armored combat vehicles, and military aviation” (2023 agreements) (7). The program's core principle: Russia shares battlefield knowledge, while China provides technology, AI, and mass-production capacity. Negotiations take place within a closed Russia-China forum on military-technical cooperation and other formats (8);

3. joint naval exercises and patrols: Joint Sea-2025 (9), which included the first joint submarine exercises (10) and subsequent patrols (11) (August), and Joint Sea-2026 (12) (July); the BRICS Plus naval exercises involving China, Russia, and Iran (January 2026 (13)); and patrols by strategic bombers, including nuclear-capable ones, over the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan (December 2025 (14), June 2026 (15));

4. the defense industry, weapons components, and sanctions evasion: supplies of Chinese components for drones (the Gerbera drone is made almost entirely of Chinese components, with at least 100,000 units of this model launched over the course of the war, according to the latest official figures (16)), drone production lines (17), and dual-use products (18) (at least 4,000 Chinese companies are known to trade with suppliers to Russia's defense-industrial complex); Chinese capital in sanctioned Russian drone manufacturers (Rustakt and Shenzhen Minghuaxin, among others) (19) and joint drone production (Aero-HIT in Khabarovsk (20), among others); and the export of chemical components for the production of Iskander ballistic missiles (21).

The details of the military training programs are especially notable, illustrating the breadth of the cooperation (22): 1. “a training course on combined arms warfare for about 50 Russian military personnel at the PLA's Ground Forces Army Infantry Academy branch in Shijiazhuang [...] to fire 82mm mortars while using unmanned aerial vehicles to identify their targets”; 2. “an air defense training, including with electronic warfare rifles, net-throwing devices and drones to counter incoming drones in Zhengzhou”; 3. “a drone training for Russian personnel at Yibin's PLA Training Centre for Military Aviation, first brigade. The course centered around multimedia presentations and involved the use of flight simulators, training to use several types of FPV drone and two other types of drone”; 4. “a course in November 2025 at the Nanjing University of Military Engineering of the PLA Infantry. The training covered explosives technology, mine construction, demining as well as the removal of unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices.”

Economy: Stalling of the Energy Deal, Nuclear Energy, and the Occupied Territories of Ukraine

Since June 2025, the political and economic tracks of Russia-China negotiations have remained intensive but asymmetric in form: every personal meeting between Putin and Xi has involved Putin traveling to Beijing rather than an equal exchange of visits, which is itself telling about the balance of dependency. In the second half of 2026, contacts will continue in multilateral formats, at the SCO summit in Bishkek, the BRICS summit in New Delhi, and the APEC summit in Shenzhen. The relevant channels are operating normally at every level, from foreign ministries to parliaments, but the energy bloc (Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Alexander Novak) is understandably the busiest.

It is precisely the density of contacts on the energy track that reveals its critical importance for the Russian side, extending even to openly deferential language, such as Novak's statement that “Russia-China cooperation is taking on the character of a genuine strategic alliance.” (23) This logic also fits the special role of Rosneft head Igor Sechin, leader of a pro-China faction within the elite who regularly meets with Chinese partners through China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). An even more active channel runs between Alexei Miller (Gazprom) and Dai Houliang (CNPC): every substantive agreement of the past year has gone through this channel. These include the June 2025 agreements on the “Far Eastern” route (12 billion m³/year, deliveries starting in 2027) (24) and the September memorandum on Power of Siberia 2 (50 billion m³/year, transit through Mongolia via the “Soyuz Vostok” pipeline, plus an expansion of the existing Power of Siberia from 38 to 44 billion m³) (25). By Miller's own estimate, accounting for all the announced infrastructure, annual deliveries to China could theoretically grow from the current 38 billion m³ to 106 billion m³, a 2.8-fold increase (26). However, on July 13, the Wall Street Journal reported (27) that no breakthrough on Power of Siberia 2 was in fact achieved during Putin's May visit: the Chinese side made gas supplies at domestic Russian market prices a condition for signing, effectively requiring Moscow to subsidize the project, and advised Moscow “not to raise the issue again until conditions change.” The stakes for the Kremlin are clear from the trend: pre-war exports to Europe stood at 150 billion m³ (2021), and had collapsed to 36 billion m³ by 2025 (28). Current exports to China (38.8 billion m³ (29)) are already comparable to what remains of the European direction, but even the hypothetical realization of the entire project package (106 billion m³) would not offset the loss of the 2021-level European market.

Nuclear energy is one of the few tracks where Moscow formally retains a competitive advantage: state corporation Rosatom serves as the technological donor, supplying design solutions, equipment, and fuel to China. On July 24, 2026, the 30th meeting of the Russia-China Subcommission on Nuclear Energy was held in Beijing (30), after which Rosatom head Alexei Likhachev gave an overview of current cooperation between the two sides. Practical cooperation is expanding in civilian nuclear power, thermonuclear energy, and quantum technologies (31): Rosatom is building two nuclear power plants in China (Tianwan and Xudapu), each with two VVER-1200 units, and this year began supplying nuclear fuel for VVER-1200 reactors and fast-neutron reactors, while also exporting specialized equipment and software for joint operation and maintenance and cooperating on the development of fourth-generation fast nuclear reactors (32). In addition, Russia accounts for up to 80% of the Chinese market for certain scarce radioisotopes. At the same time, several analysts have voiced suspicions of cooperation in the military nuclear sphere as well: possible cooperation on a suspected hybrid nuclear propulsion system for the Chinese Type 041 submarine (33), and joint work on the new Chinese Type 096 nuclear ballistic missile submarine (34). Against the backdrop of the gas standoff, this looks like a rare case where Russia holds a strong negotiating position rather than pleading for terms, though this advantage is confined to the bilateral relationship rather than extending to new markets. In Central Asia, territory Moscow has traditionally regarded as its sphere of influence, including in the nuclear domain, Beijing is already openly competing with Rosatom for clients. In 2025, Kazakhstan awarded Rosatom the country's first nuclear power plant, “Balkhash” (35) (at Ulken, with VVER-1200 reactors), but awarded the second and third to the Chinese state corporation China National Nuclear Corporation (36); Uzbekistan is meanwhile negotiating with the Chinese side to expand cooperation (37).

According to a comprehensive 2026 report (38), Chinese business is actively penetrating Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory while its status remains formally unrecognized, and almost all the firms named in the report are not under sanctions. Chinese companies (SANY, Amma Construction Machinery, Zhongxin Heavy Industrial Machinery, Taiyuan Heavy Industry, and others) supply mining equipment for Donbas coal mines (for example, the Karan open pit and the IMPEX-DON mines), Huawei provides telecommunications infrastructure through Miranda-Media LLC (roughly 6,000 base stations), and WISDRI is negotiating the modernization of Donetsk region's metallurgical facilities. At the same time, the yuan has become the region's second base currency (79 points of sale, with daily turnover of roughly 12.3 million yuan through Promsvyazbank), while roughly 80% of payments to major Chinese banks are rejected, pushing businesses toward shadow crypto schemes (USDT) and payments via Alipay or WeChat disguised as “friendly transfers.” The occupation is also being legitimized from the Chinese side through “soft power”: from the performance amid the ruins of the Mariupol Drama Theater by Chinese opera singer Wang Fan (2023), wife of Zhou Xiaoping, a member of the National Committee (39) of the CPPCC, the highest advisory body to the Communist Party leadership (40), to the opening of Chinese educational centers in Luhansk (2025).

Although Beijing frames all these contacts as “private initiatives”, activity of this scale in a sensitive zone would be impossible within China's authoritarian system without at least the tacit approval of the party leadership, and the performance by the wife of a national-level party figure makes this clear.

Cooperation in Propaganda and FIMI: Institutionalization of the State Agencies' Partnership

Putin's visit to Beijing in May 2026 clearly revealed a new strategic direction in the Russia-China partnership: information coordination, which heightens the threat of aligned FIMI activities and joint information operations aimed at undermining the domestic cohesion of Western societies.

Of the 42 documents signed during the visit (41), nine concern cooperation in the information sphere, covering nearly all the major state-linked actors in the Russian media market:

On the Chinese side, the signatories are China Daily Group, Xinhua, People's Daily, and China Media Group (CMG). The titles of the documents clearly indicate their purpose: direct news exchange between the corporations, expanded cooperation, and joint personnel training. All these measures will evidently increase the scale of disinformation campaigns run by the two largest propaganda machines. According to the 4th EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats (42), rare instances of mutual content amplification between FIMI infrastructures linked to Russia and China were already observed in 2025. Most FIMI incidents (65%) were not attributed, yet showed “indicators of coordination with FIMI assets linked to Russian or Chinese attributed infrastructures,” meaning the actual number of cases of mutual amplification that have already occurred could be much higher. According to an earlier report (43),

“Russia and China strengthen their connection through state-controlled media like CGTN, Global Times, RIA Novosti, and Sputnik, acting as bridges to cross-amplify narratives.”

Chinese FIMI resources, for example, systematically broadcast pro-Russian narratives on the war in Ukraine, and Chinese bloggers and propaganda-media staff have exclusive access to occupied Ukrainian territory (44), as reported by Reporters Without Borders (45):

“Even if limited in scale, the Chinese media presence in occupied Ukrainian territories represents a victory for Russian propaganda. Beijing provides the Kremlin with what it needs most: international legitimacy, the amplification of its media and help normalising the occupation. In return, Moscow opens the occupied territories to Chinese investment.”

The amplification of pro-Russian narratives aligned with Moscow is especially effective in Global South countries, where Chinese media have significant reach and promote the following lines: 1. framing the West as hypocritical; 2. discrediting NATO and Western alliances; 3. promoting multipolarity; 4. undermining US democracy. According to expert assessments (46), traditional counter-disinformation methods such as fact-checking, public communication campaigns, and diplomatic pressure are insufficient to address the scale and complexity of modern information manipulation, which only underscores the growing relevance of the threat posed by Sino-Russian convergence in FIMI. Given AI's increasing role in current FIMI operations, particular attention should also be paid to the establishment, on July 16, 2026, of the World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO), aimed at preventing global AI inequality (47) with Russia, China, and 27 other Global South countries as co-founders. The membership and the Shanghai headquarters point directly to an attempt to build an alternative, non-Western institutional framework for global governance and to pool efforts in AI, which will also affect disinformation operations.

Concerns About Beijing: Opinions Within the Z-Community

Whereas the Kremlin previously used official propaganda, controlled Z-channels, and even controlled leaks (48) to try to convince Washington that it regarded China as an enemy and that Russia would supposedly be useful in standing up to China if Moscow's terms on Ukraine were accepted, the situation is now the reverse. For example, official propaganda at the intersection with the Z-segment, voiced by Vladimir Solovyov, now states directly that

“victory requires building a full-fledged military-political alliance with China” (49).

The China agenda otherwise appears in the Z-information space only situationally, aside from ongoing coverage of new Chinese military hardware and the effectiveness of its components in Russian weapons systems (50), (51), (52), and is predominantly focused on criticizing Moscow's growing dependence on Beijing.

The security bloc-linked channel Svarshchiki is the most consistent and systematic in its criticism of China:

“Why the hell are the Chinese even selling drones to the khokhols, given that they're our allies, strategic partners, and 'friends' of all things? We wrote recently that China, if not the war's main beneficiary, is certainly one of its main beneficiaries. And now the question arises: have we been deceived here too? An ally to your face, but arming the enemy behind your back,” (53)

framing China's position as

“you all keep fighting endlessly, and we'll keep selling you drones.” (54)

The same theme, that China's friendliness toward Russia is an act, is continued by the leading Z-blogger Yuri Podolyaka and the influential Z-analyst Yuri Kotenok:

“Big 'thanks' to our Chinese 'allies' for supplying Kyiv with everything it needs to fight us,” (55)

and

“If Russians keep getting killed, the Chinese will patiently stand aside 'to the bitter end,' carefully watching what happens [...] Chinese pragmatism is exceptional and implies no preferences for Russians. I wouldn't even call China a fellow traveler. At best, it's a bystander that will ultimately want to grab whatever is left unguarded.” (56)

The Z-channel Fighterbomber makes a similar point, indirectly framing China as an obstacle to victory:

“If we obliterate Ukraine with a nuke, who will China sell drones, fuel, massage devices, and other valuable furs to? That's trillions of dollars in profit lost for nothing [...] The fact that if we obliterate Ukraine, we won't need to buy nearly as much from China anymore apparently isn't being factored in.” (57)

Summing up, Z-volunteer Alexei Zhivov (58), describing Russia's current role in tandem with China as a “cheap donor of knowledge,” proposes forcibly accepting this critical dependency, justifying it as an “objective historical process” in which the best possible status for Russia is that of a

“junior but strategic partner,”

provided that

“we don't squander our entire collective intelligence in the future without getting any benefit from it.”

Sources