[3] On the eve of a 2013 state visit to Moscow by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked that the two nations were forging a special relationship.

[19] In December 1996, at the end of Chinese Premier Li Peng's visit to Moscow, Russia and China issued a joint communique pledging to build an "equal and reliable partnership.

[27][28] Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, argued in 2019: Though there is no overt ideological alignment between Russia and China today, the two governments share a hostility to dissent, deep suspicion of Western interference and a strong desire to impose tighter controls over their own societies.

Mr. Xi has presided over a push to stamp out corruption and bolster the Communist party's role in the economy and the society at large—a campaign akin to Mr. Putin's earlier effort to tame Russian oligarchs and crush political opposition.

[24]: 72 In February 2024, Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning declined to comment on the death of Russian opposition politician and political prisoner Alexei Navalny, describing it as "Russia's internal affair".

[30] Xi and Putin met on February 4, 2022, during a massive Russian build-up of force on the Ukrainian border, with the two expressing that the two countries are nearly united in their anti-US alignment and that both nations shared "no limits" to their commitments.

"[44] In March 2023, Politico reported that Chinese state-owned weapons manufacturer Norinco shipped assault rifles, drone parts, and body armor to Russia between June and December 2022, with some of the shipments going through via third-countries including Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

[52] In July 2023, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a report stating that the Chinese government is assisting Russia to evade sanctions and providing it with dual-use technology.

By investing in an economy that is now facing certain problems due to the fall of the ruble and oil prices, China is carrying out soft expansion and supports one of its main partners.

[73] On 18 October 2023, Chinese leader Xi Jinping emphasized the deepening "political mutual trust" with Russian President Vladimir Putin, lauding their strong strategic coordination and record-high bilateral trade volume.

[83] On November 23, 2010, at a meeting of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, it was announced that Russia and China have decided to use their own national currencies for bilateral trade, instead of the U.S. dollar.

[101] Given its geographical proximity to China and position as one of the world's largest oil producers and natural gas exporters, Russia has been an obvious candidate for meeting this increased demand.

[117] In September 1999, the two countries began joint construction of a nuclear power station at Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province with an installed capacity of 2 million kW, one of the first situations of mutual energy cooperation.

The project stalled in October 2003 when Yukos chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges including tax evasion and fraud, and the Russian government launched an immediate investigation into the company.

[122] A week after Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest, China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue publicly announced that the Kremlin investigation would not impact the proposed China-Russia oil pipeline project.

[123] In September 2004, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov in Moscow, where the two heads of government signed agreements affirming Russia's promise to set the route of a proposed pipeline from Eastern Siberia to the Pacific, with priority given to laying a pipeline spur to China, as well as increasing rail oil exports to China to 10 million tons (200,000 b/d) in 2005 and 15 million tons (300,000 b/d) in 2006.

[152] In April 2009, Rosneft and Transneft had signed deals with CNPC guaranteeing the pipeline's production of 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day for twenty years as part of a $25 billion loan-for-oil agreement.

Some difficulties stem from the Kazakh riots[156] to endless environmental concerns,[157][158][159] but most recently the capsizing of an oil platform that was allowed to operate in the north late in the season, while towed under adverse maritime conditions.

In 2000, President Putin warned a Siberian audience that unless Russia intensified the region's development, the Russian Far East would end up speaking Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

[171][172] In 2002, the Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Vladimir Potapov, expressed serious concerns about the region's combined remoteness, weak infrastructure, declining population, and wealth "in very diverse resources".

"[176] The RFE has been one of the most difficult areas to transition between the structure of the Soviet Union and the still developing Russian state due to the lack of economic self-sufficiency in the region or any prospects of stable growth.

In September 2005, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref promised doubling state support for the RFE to $612 million in 2006, and the consideration of allocating a new $2.5 billion infrastructure fund for projects in the region.

[177] A year later, at the end of 2006, Putin reiterated that the socio-economic isolation of the RFE represented a threat to national security, and advocated yet another new socioeconomic commission and regional development strategy to be formed.

[205] While China and Russia do enjoy some bilateral energy cooperation, which experts predict will continue to grow in the future, the two countries have emerged as rivals for Central Asian oil and gas supplies.

[206] With the rising oil prices in the mid-2000s, Russia has sought to renew its influence in Central Asia, in particular the region's southern flank, to guarantee access to gas supplies for reexport to Europe and for its own domestic needs.

On July 12, 1994, the Russian and Chinese defence ministers signed a border security agreement designed to prevent potentially dangerous military incidents, such as unintentional radar jamming and airspace violations.

Gaps in certain capabilities remain, including development of electronic and reliable propulsion systems, although China's defense industry production has improved significantly, providing an advantage over other militaries in the Asia-Pacific region.

According to a Pentagon report released in July 2024, Russia had reopened hundreds of Soviet-era military sites in the Arctic, while China was interested in the region's mineral resources and new shipping routes.

[239] In March 2023, Russian president Vladimir Putin, in a comments briefing, assured that there is no military alliance between the two countries and stated that both Russia's and China's armed forces are "transparent".

Russia and China have established “a tacit consensus of interests anchored in loose commitments of mutual assistance, enabling strategic autonomy for a synergy to strengthen their respective strategic positions in reshaping the current world order.”[241] In the 21st century, the Chinese Communist Party's version of the Sino-Soviet border conflict, which is present on many official Party websites, describes the events of March 1969 as a Soviet aggression against China.