China in Russia and Ukraine: September 2025
Major Meetings Cement China-Russia Relations: On August 31, Russian President Vladimir Putin embarked on a rare four-day trip to China. From August 31 to September 3, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Putin, in addition to more than two dozen world leaders, at the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit followed by the country’s Victory Day Parade commemorating the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II.
Putin’s arrival in Tianjin for the SCO summit was met with a red-carpet reception by top Chinese officials, with state media describing bilateral ties as the “most stable, mature, and strategically significant among major countries.” The summit kicked off with Putin walking hand in hand with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the meeting hall to greet Xi on stage. Many analysts argued that the images of Modi, Putin, and Xi smiling and laughing together issued a clear message to the Trump administration that it cannot bully them into agreeing to its demands. In recent weeks, China and India found themselves targeted by secondary tariffs from the United States for their support of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The chummy images also signaled the potential revival of the Russia-India-China troika, a trilateral forum inactive since 2021 that the Kremlin seeks to reestablish.
The gathering’s message hit home when Xi slammed the United States during his opening remarks, calling for the countries gathered to stand in opposition to its “Cold War mentality, bloc confrontation, and bullying practices.” Xi went on to announce the launch of a Global Governance Initiative to promote Chinese leadership and challenge U.S.-led multilateral institutions. He also announced his intention to create an SCO development bank, pledging to provide two billion yuan of free aid to member countries this year and an additional ten billion yuan in loans to establish the development bank. Putin echoed some of Xi’s sentiments in his own remarks, arguing that the SCO is a road map for “a system that would replace the outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models.” However, he mostly used the opportunity to emphasize the West’s culpability for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Following the summit on September 2, Putin and Xi held two bilateral discussions in Beijing at the Great Hall of the People and Xi’s personal residence. During one meeting, Putin praised the role that China and the Soviet Union played in ending World War II, saying, “We were together then, we remain together now.” The Russian readout indicated that several documents were signed extending China-Russia cooperation in agriculture, health care, higher education, nuclear energy, and various scientific research projects, among other areas.
Putin concluded his trip as the guest of honor, alongside North Korean President Kim Jong-Un, at China’s Victory Day Parade. The parade marked the first meeting of Kim, Putin, and Xi, the so-called axis of upheaval. Analysts characterized the four-day spectacle as a major propaganda win for China and Russia, and a clear signal of the growing cohesion among a coalition of anti-Western states. For Russia specifically, it demonstrated that strong economic allies—and lesser but nonetheless impactful military ones—continue to support the country.
Behind the Scenes, Moscow-Beijing Economic Integration Continues: Energy was high on the agenda during Putin and Xi’s bilateral discussions on the elusive Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. Following the meetings on September 2, Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom, announced that China and Russia had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to build a new pipeline from West Siberia to northwest China. Miller lauded the agreement as a significant breakthrough in talks that had been stalled for nearly a decade over the $13.6 billion project. While some experts said it was a clear signal of China and Russia’s developing partnership in the energy sector and defiance of the Trump administration’s punitive trade policies, others cautioned against overexaggerating the implications of the incomplete agreement.
Although the memorandum codified China and Russia’s intention to build the pipeline, it notably did not address the project’s two largest sticking points: pricing and funding. Though China can afford to delay progress to get favorable conditions (i.e., low prices and minimal investment), Russia does not have that luxury. With gas exports to Europe curtailed following the invasion of Ukraine, Russia is desperate to make up for its losses, and its wealthy ally provides the best method of doing so. By some estimates, completing the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline would offset nearly half of the gas exports to Europe that Russia has lost. To further offset that deficit, Russia and China also agreed in Beijing to increase the supply of gas via the existing Power of Siberia and Sakhalin Island pipelines. But negotiations over pricing on the original Power of Siberia pipeline lasted almost a decade, and China has not signaled any kind of urgency to reach an agreement on that score this time around. Analysts were quick to note that whereas Russian officials were eager to share the news of the new MOU, Chinese officials have not confirmed the agreement. As one expert put it, for China, which has its own substantial domestic gas production and a growing diversity of energy sources, the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline is “a nice to have [but] not a must-have.”
The agreement came as trade writ large between the two countries appeared to dip. Chinese customs data indicates that both Chinese exports and imports to and from Russia decreased significantly in August. In yuan terms, exports fell by 16.4 percent—the fifth straight monthly decline—while imports contracted by 17.8 percent. Chinese imports of crude oil, specifically, fell by 15.2 percent. Official data indicates China was able to make up the loss by increasing imports from other countries such as Brazil and Indonesia. It is unclear whether that decrease in crude-oil trade indicates a larger issue between the two partners or was merely a temporary blip.
Not long after the agreement on Power of Siberia 2 was announced, U.S. President Donald Trump called on Europe to impose up to 100 percent tariffs on China, as well as India, until they agree to halt their oil trade with Russia. The call to action comes as the Trump administration seeks to increase economic pressure on Russia to end its war in Ukraine. China and India remain the largest importers of Russian oil, alongside Turkey. The United States has already imposed 50 percent tariffs on India, including additional 25 percent duties on imports for its transactions with Russia, but has so far proven reluctant to do the same with China. However, Trump’s request came with the provision that if Europe moved to implement tariffs on China first, the United States would follow. China’s commerce ministry called Trump’s statements “a classic example of unilateral bullying and economic coercion.”
While that debate played out on the international stage, ship-tracking data from September showed numerous tankers carrying Russian liquified natural gas docking in China in violation of Western sanctions. A Chinese cargo ship sailing under a Panamanian flag was documented visiting the Russian-occupied Crimean port of Sevastopol several times in recent months, violating those same sanctions. The visits followed the opening of a new railway into Crimea in April, which Ukrainian officials believe is being used to transport goods from the occupied regions of Donetsk and Kherson for export. A Reuters investigation has also found that Russia has increased its barter trade with China in an additional effort to bypass Western sanctions. With Chinese banks and other companies afraid of being targeted by sanctions, barter transactions provide an alternative that is harder to trace. Meanwhile, sources familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that China is preparing to reopen its domestic bond market to Russian energy companies, including Rosatom and Gazprom. Chinese financial regulators reportedly told Russian executives from those two companies that they would back their sale of so-called panda bonds, or yuan-denominated sovereign bonds. Such action would be the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that China would permit Russian corporate fundraising on its mainland.
United at the United Nations: At the UN Security Council in September, China and Russia led a failed resolution to delay reimposing UN sanctions against Iran. The two countries argued that delaying snapback sanctions on Iran—meant to punish Iran for developing its nuclear program—would open “the path of diplomacy and dialogue, instead of [Europe and the U.S.’s] clumsy blackmail,” said Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations. Only four countries of the fifteen-member Security Council—Algeria, China, Pakistan, and Russia—voted in favor of the resolution.
Open Borders: As Putin and Xi enjoyed one another’s company at Beijing’s Victory Day Parade, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun stated that China will initiate a “trial visa-free policy” for Russian citizens hoping to visit the country from September 15, 2025, through September 14, 2026. Shortly thereafter, at a meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, with Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Li Hongzhong, Putin announced Russia would pursue a similar policy. Those measures, ostensibly meant to boost tourism, unfolded as China and Russia deepen their cultural ties.
Military Cooperation Abounds: While China, by dancing around a final settlement on the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, could be demonstrating its economic power over Russia, Moscow is eking out its own advantages by providing Beijing with military assistance. On September 8 and 9, China and Russia held a joint border defense exercise with Mongolia in an undisclosed shared border region. On September 25, Reuters reported that Chinese drone experts have repeatedly visited Russia to assist the country in developing new drone models. China likely views those visits as opportunities to learn from Russian results on the battlefield in Ukraine, mirroring how west European governments have been keen to observe Ukraine’s innovations. But Russia is also willing to teach China more directly. A September 27 report from the UK’s Royal United Services Institute claimed Russia, whose airborne warfare capabilities still outpace China’s, has been supplying the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with weaponry, equipment, and training to increase the latter’s capacities for airborne battalions and special forces infiltration, along with technology that will allow China to scale up and produce such equipment for itself. That would prove especially dangerous in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, as it would allow the PLA to do diversify its approaches beyond risky amphibious landings.
China: The European Peacemaker: Despite those deepening military ties—and its role in aiding Russia’s invasion—China continues to promote itself as a neutral party insistent on peace between Russia and Ukraine. On September 30, Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine Ma Shengkun claimed that China is eager to work with Russia and Ukraine to reach a ceasefire. Desire for China to play a larger role in ending the war—beyond Ma’s statements—proliferates in today’s Europe: in September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski all highlighted China’s role in supporting Russia’s war, urging China to withdraw its support for Russia. Yet China seems content to sternly wag its finger. After Russian drones violated Polish airspace in early September, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian urged Poland and Russia to resolve the issue through “dialogue and consultations,” but China otherwise stayed silent. That position seems to please Putin, who welcomed China as a mediator on the sidelines of the SCO. Both the West and Russia seem to acknowledge that China can take an important part in ending the war in Ukraine; the difference lies in what each asks of China to achieve it.
