Russia and China deepen ties, but the quartet of chaos has no treaty holding it together
US experts warn of a growing strategic alignment, yet Beijing and Moscow's convenience pact carries no binding commitments and no shared ideology.
ICE Brent crude front-month was changing hands at $87.19/bbl on Friday (2026-08-14), up 0.22%, while Urals crude traded at $84.86/bbl with a 0.65% gain as of the same timestamp.5
The narrow spread between Russian and benchmark barrels is one of the few visible market signals of how Moscow and Beijing have tightened their economic embrace since the war in Ukraine began. US experts and former officials, speaking on June 10 at the "America's Adversaries: The Russia Reality" national security conference, said Russia, China and Iran are increasingly forming a "strategic alliance of convenience" designed to disrupt the US-led global order.5
What that convenience actually consists of is easier to measure than the rhetoric around it. China accounts for 90% of Russia's microelectronics imports and 70% of its machine tools, according to the American government — the components Russia needs to keep building missiles and drones for its campaign in Ukraine.3
The political scaffolding got a fresh coat in May. Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing on Tuesday (2026-05-19) for a two-day visit with Xi Jinping, his second face-to-face meeting with the Chinese leader in a short window, as the two countries navigated war, sanctions and a fractured global order.1
The joint statement that emerged ran to nearly 10,000 words and projected a partnership of growing depth. Yet analysts came away noting Putin left Beijing with few major new deliverables in hand. The document was long on ambition, short on wins.4
The four countries that Washington now groups as a coherent threat — China, Iran, North Korea and Russia — do not share a mutual-defense treaty, a unified command structure or a binding strategic doctrine. Antony Blinken, America's secretary of state, was unusually blunt on a recent European visit: one reason Putin can sustain his aggression is the support he receives from Beijing.3
But analysts point to something thinner holding the four together: shared opposition to the US-led order. There is no underlying ideology connecting Beijing's state capitalism, Tehran's theocracy, Pyongyang's dynastic rule and Moscow's autocracy. It is a coalition of rejection rather than shared purpose.3
For traders, the distinction has practical implications. A formal alliance would carry predictable consequences for sanctions enforcement, shipping insurance and the discount on Russian crude. An arrangement of convenience is more fluid — it can deepen when Washington pressures any one member and fray when their interests diverge.5
The unpredictability of US foreign policy is a factor, with analysts arguing it has pushed Russia and China closer together. Xi's decision to host Trump and Putin within the span of a week was not coincidence, analysts say, but reflects Beijing's attempt to cast itself as a trusted actor in a volatile world order.1
Beijing has pressed its own agenda elsewhere. When Sri Lanka's president visited China in January, a joint statement said for the first time that the country "firmly supports all efforts by the Chinese government to achieve national reunification" — a phrase Beijing has been inserting into bilateral documents as it advances its claims on Taiwan.2
For European buyers of oil and gas, the practical concern is whether Chinese support for Russia extends to underwriting its energy exports at levels that keep the war financed without triggering a broader rupture. The EU's €90-billion package for 2026–2027 covers two-thirds of Ukraine's total budgetary needs, a sign that Western funding is holding for now.6
Putin left Beijing in May with words, not a treaty. Whether the empty deliverables of that summit prove to be the pattern — rather than a pause before something more binding — is what the next round of high-level meetings will need to answer.4