Yahoo News Putin-Xi relationship is increasingly unbalanced - don't be fooled by the choreographed bromance
It is meant to look like a meeting of equals. A choreographed bromance between two autocratic leaders who call themselves friends. But don't be fooled.
The relationship between Vladimir Putin and his guest Xi Jinping is unbalanced and increasingly so.
Beyond the pomp and goose-stepping ceremony, there is one undeniable truth. The Xi-Putin summit has helped seal Russia's fate as a vassal state of China.
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True the two men have plenty in common. They are both authoritarian leaders united in a determination to stand up to the 'collective West' as President Putin put it in an article for this morning's newspapers.
They are both frustrated with America. Putin has felt betrayed by the US for a decade since NATO's intervention in Libya. President Xi is fed up with America's decades-long dominance of the world order and eager to replace it with something more congenial to China's interests.
And they both want Russia to prevail in Ukraine. Putin cannot afford to lose. A NATO-backed Ukrainian victory would not bode well for Xi's designs on Taiwan.
But the relationship is one-sided. For Putin it is essential. For Xi? Well, not so much. The terms of this partnership are largely in China's favour.
Ostracised by the West, Russia desperately needs economic and diplomatic support and markets for its gas and oil.
So Russia has become a reliable source of affordable energy for China. Its imports of Russian gas and oil leapt last year by more than 50%.
Win-win for China
In return, Russia is buying more and more hi-tech and heavy industrial goods because it can no longer import them from the West. A win-win for Beijing.
There are potential downsides for both. A Russian defeat in Ukraine would mean a loss of prestige for China.
Xi may claim to be an even-handed peacemaker above the fray but those pretensions ring hollow.
He is spending three days with Putin in Moscow and may possibly fit in a phone call to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the way home.
But for Russia, the risks are far greater. China's priority is always China. It can be a transactional and unsentimental partner. Ask any of the poorer nations it has ensnared in debt trap strategies.
Moscow increasingly subordinate to Beijing's whim
Putin's disastrous and bloody war in Ukraine has seen economic ties cut with multiple nations in the West.
Instead, there is more and more dependence on just one neighbour in the East.
Russia is fast becoming China's junior partner, increasingly subordinate to the whim of Beijing.
Long term, none of that is in Russia's strategic interest.
