Russian aggression boosts China’s bargaining power

With the Putin administration hard-pressed by Western sanctions, Beijing may look to take advantage

The world looked very different when Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping announced a grand new alliance between their countries at the start of the Winter Olympics in China in early February, touting it as a “no limits” partnership superior to Nato and other Cold War-era alliances. The former’s apparent miscalculation over the strength of reaction by Ukraine’s allies to his illegal invasion has handed the latter the upper hand in their new relationship. “The war in Ukraine has shifted the Russian-Chinese energy balance in China’s favour,” says Jan Kalicki, an energy security expert at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based thinktank. “The Kremlin must depend much