When Putin invaded Ukraine, many commentators immediately assumed that Russia's subsequent decoupling from the West would push it closer to China.

But while that has obviously happened to some extent, the actual depth of this new Russia-China alliance has always been a bit ambiguous.

However, in the past few months, there have been a number of reports suggesting that China-Russia relations are more strained than Xi and Putin sometimes make out, and that the relationship is perhaps more transactional than more pessimistic Western commentators might assume.

So in this video, we're going to take a look at how Sino-Russian relations have changed over time, the recent points of tension, and what this tells us about the nature of relations more generally.

Before we start, if you haven't already, please consider subscribing and ringing the bell to stay in the loop and be notified when we release new videos.

So let's start with a bit of context.

From basically the 60s until the collapse of the Soviet Union, China and Russia, or rather the Soviet Union, didn't really get on.

There were a whole load of reasons for this, including differing interpretations of Marxism – the PRC actually accused the Soviet Union of being revisionist traitors in 1961 – and an ongoing border dispute which escalated into a war in 1969.

But one of the recurring issues was foreign policy.

In the 50s and 60s, Mao disagreed with Khrushchev's notion of peaceful coexistence between East and West, and resented the Soviet Union's growing ties with India.

Then in the 70s, when Cold War tensions were at their peak, Mao pursued a policy of rapprochement with the US, culminating in Nixon's visit to China in 1972.

Tensions were permanently high until the collapse of the Soviet Union, when its diminished geopolitical status forced Russia to pursue a more conciliatory foreign policy.

In 1991, the two sides resolved their long-standing border dispute with the Sino-Soviet Border

Agreement.

In 1992, they declared they were pursuing a constructive partnership.

In 1996, they said it had become a strategic partnership.

And in 2001, they signed the Treaty of Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation, which is maybe the most chummily named treaty in the history of international affairs.

The treaty lasted 20 years, and was recently renewed for another five.

The relationship has been buoyed by a good personal relationship between Putin and Xi, and complementary economies.

During China's rapid industrial development, it needed lots of energy, and specifically oil.

In 2007, Russia exported about $15 billion worth of goods to China, mostly oil.

In 2019, that figure had nearly quadrupled to $57 billion.

Russia overtook Saudi Arabia to become China's largest oil supplier, and China overtook Germany to become Russia's largest trading partner.

When the war in Ukraine kicked off, most analysts expected it to push Russia and China closer together.

The subsequent severing of Russia's economic relations with most of the West made it increasingly dependent on China for international trade, and the CCP were at least sympathetic to Russia's invasion.

While the CCP were wary of endorsing any violation of internationally recognised borders because of Taiwan, which is recognised by most of the international community as part of China,

China has always been pretty anti-NATO, both because they see it as a vehicle for American hegemony and because of NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

For context, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, five guided bombs from a US plane hit the embassy, killing three Chinese journalists.

President Clinton apologised for the bombing, stating that it was an accident, but the CCP weren't entirely convinced.

The CIA would later admit that it was the only bombing during the entire campaign organised by the agency, and a report in the Observer published five months after the bombing claimed that it had been deliberately targeted because the CIA had evidence it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.

This is something largely forgotten in the West, but it sparked enormous public outrage in China, which still simmers today.

Anyway, this has happened to some extent.

China has continued to trade with Russia, and has indeed become by far and away its largest trading partner.

Its continued exports of so-called dual-use goods, things that could be used for either military or civilian purposes like drones or machine parts, has provoked serious irritation in the West, although the CCP have at least nominally complied with US requests to not supply arms to Russia directly.

China and Russia have also continued to perform joint military drills, including in the seas around Taiwan.

However, in the past few months, the limits of this friendship have become increasingly apparent.

As we see it, there are at least three things today that suggest that Sino-Russia relations aren't quite as solid as they're sometimes made out to be.

The first is the ongoing dispute over gas pricing.

When Europe stopped importing Russian pipeline gas, there was a hope in Moscow that Russia would be able to redirect some of these exports to China via a new pipeline called the Power of Siberia 2.

China already received some Russian gas via the first Power of Siberia pipeline, which began operating in 2019 and has a maximum annual capacity of 38 billion cubic metres.

But this is a far cry from the 200 billion cubic metres Russia used to export to Europe.

The Power of Siberia 2 was supposed to have a capacity of 50 billion cubic metres, but two years in and construction hasn't even started yet.

According to a report from the Financial Times, this is because China is demanding unpalatably low prices from Gazprom, Russia's majority state-owned energy company, which suffered a 600 billion ruble loss last year, its worst performance in at least 25 years.

This is presumably because China knows that Russia needs China as a reliable export market, and would also explain why Russia already receives less for its gas than other suppliers.

The second thing worth noting is that, in the past few months, Chinese banks have become increasingly unwilling to help Russia evade Western sanctions.

According to Business Insider, nearly all Chinese banks are now refusing to process

Russian payments, and a separate report from the Financial Times claims that the Kremlin are disappointed by Beijing's unwillingness to use state banks to evade sanctions and maximise trade.

This is in part because Western sanctions have been deliberately recalibrated to deter

Chinese entities.

In October, for instance, the US added 42 Chinese companies to its sanction list, and the Biden administration has continued to threaten secondary sanctions aimed at Chinese entities if they continue supporting Russia.

The third thing is that, since May of this year, there have been numerous reports suggesting that Chinese state-backed hackers have been targeting systems used by the Russian government, allegedly to spy on the Russian state.

Now, to be clear, none of these examples imply, nor are we trying to suggest, that Russia and China are enemies in any way.

It's not uncommon for superpowers to spy on their allies, and China's harsh bargaining and reluctance to help Russia evade sanctions is just Beijing following its economic self-interest.

Nonetheless, it's always been a bit of an open question as to whether the blooming Russia-China bromance was a real alliance, or more of a marriage of convenience, and these examples suggest it's the latter.

If you want to keep learning, the best way is through Imprint.

That's the brand new way to learn built from the ground up.

And seriously, unless you've used the app before, you likely haven't experienced something like this.

That's because Imprint is beautifully illustrated and animated, creating a highly visual, effective, and interactive learning experience built for bite-sized learning.

You can take advantage of their expansive library of courses, book summaries, and articles to learn about psychology, philosophy, leadership, the science of happiness, productivity systems, finance, science, technology, health, and wellness, history, and more.

Plus, you can learn about these things quickly, with most individual lessons taking a few minutes to complete.

That speed doesn't mean it's light on information either.

Imprint is built around the science of learning, so it helps to build habits around learning, utilises high-quality visuals to boost understanding, as well as letting users learn at their own pace.

Ultimately, Imprint is a way to feel good about your screen time and learn something new, rather than just mindlessly scrolling on social media.

Stop doom-scrolling, start learning.

So join the millions of users learning with Imprint by clicking the link in the description.

That way you'll get 20% off an annual plan, plus they'll know you came from us.