From Lifeline to Target: The Quiet Rift in the Russia–China Partnership
While Russia and Ukraine are trading missiles and drones, another war—silent, smokeless—has been unleashed on “Made in China.” This time, the front is not the battlefield but the marketplace, and Moscow’s target is China’s heavy truck makers. Dongfeng, Foton, FAW Jiefang, Sinotruk, Sitrak—names that once dominated Russian roads—are now categorically banned in one Russian sweeping decree. The official verdict? “Brake system failures,” “excessive noise,”.
Yet before this purge, Chinese heavy trucks virtually had no competitors on the Russian market —they had no competitors. Sinotruk’s Shandeka had seized the crown as Russia’s best-selling truck, rolling out at over 700,000 rubles (USD 80,000) apiece, with queues of buyers ready to pay in hard cash. And now—overnight—the same trucks are declared unfit? Were those tens of thousands of Russian customers fools, or has the story changed for reasons unspoken?
The farce deepens. Not only are future sales banned, but trucks already sold are recalled, with no clarity on refunds or replacements. Chinese manufacturers are given no path to appeal—Moscow simply says “not good enough,” and the gavel falls.
The truth is, this didn’t begin with a single ban. The ground had been prepared. In October 2024, Russia suddenly raised its vehicle scrapping tax to a punishing 85%. Which means if you bought a truck for $30,000, you’d owe $25,500 just to dispose of it before its legal lifespan ended—a punitive tax, a warning in substance.
Then came 2025 and another twist of the knife: a “price-gap surcharge.” If a vehicle sells abroad for $20,000 but in Russia for $30,000, the buyer must pay another $50,000—half the difference—straight to the state. A barricade built to suffocate Chinese rivals.
And still, it wasn’t enough. By September 30, 2024, all Chinese vehicles had to pass Russian-run testing—twice the cost, up to a year in delays—and were forced to install GLONASS navigation whose performance is much inferior to China’s Beidou. Worse, any attempt to route trucks through Kazakhstan would end with confiscation and destruction, the loss borne entirely by the exporter.
Russia strikes hard, harder than Washington or Brussels ever dared against Chinese manufacturing.
But the question remains—does Moscow truly have the confidence to shut China out?
When the war broke out in Ukraine and the West turned its back, the western car giants fled in a single file: Toyota, Volkswagen, Renault, Ford—not one stayed. In that vacuum, it was Chinese automakers who drove in against the headwind, who kept Russia’s roads moving, who restored a semblance of life to a market on the brink of collapse.
Yet somewhere between gratitude and dependency, something curdled. Chinese companies didn’t just supply; they dominated—smartphones, electronics, automobiles. What was once seen as rescue began to feel, in the Russian telling, like exploitation. The tone shifted: China is not helping us; China is profiting from us. And so, even in its moment of greatest vulnerability, Moscow has begun driving Chinese firms out—starting with the most visible symbol of their market power: the heavy truck.
The subtext is hard to miss. The moment Western sanctions loosen, Chinese suppliers will be the first shown the door. That is the quiet truth beneath the grand rhetoric of “strategic partnership”—a truth built on mistrust and a strange Russian instinct to sever the very rope holding them above the abyss.
While Russia and Ukraine are trading missiles and drones, another war—silent, smokeless—has been unleashed on “Made in China.” This time, the front is not the battlefield but the marketplace, and Moscow’s target is China’s heavy truck makers. Dongfeng, Foton, FAW Jiefang, Sinotruk, Sitrak—names that once dominated Russian roads—are now categorically banned in one Russian sweeping decree. The official verdict? “Brake system failures,” “excessive noise,”.
Yet before this purge, Chinese heavy trucks virtually had no competitors on the Russian market —they had no competitors. Sinotruk’s Shandeka had seized the crown as Russia’s best-selling truck, rolling out at over 700,000 rubles (USD 80,000) apiece, with queues of buyers ready to pay in hard cash. And now—overnight—the same trucks are declared unfit? Were those tens of thousands of Russian customers fools, or has the story changed for reasons unspoken?
The farce deepens. Not only are future sales banned, but trucks already sold are recalled, with no clarity on refunds or replacements. Chinese manufacturers are given no path to appeal—Moscow simply says “not good enough,” and the gavel falls.
The truth is, this didn’t begin with a single ban. The ground had been prepared. In October 2024, Russia suddenly raised its vehicle scrapping tax to a punishing 85%. Which means if you bought a truck for $30,000, you’d owe $25,500 just to dispose of it before its legal lifespan ended—a punitive tax, a warning in substance.
Then came 2025 and another twist of the knife: a “price-gap surcharge.” If a vehicle sells abroad for $20,000 but in Russia for $30,000, the buyer must pay another $50,000—half the difference—straight to the state. A barricade built to suffocate Chinese rivals.
And still, it wasn’t enough. By September 30, 2024, all Chinese vehicles had to pass Russian-run testing—twice the cost, up to a year in delays—and were forced to install GLONASS navigation whose performance is much inferior to China’s Beidou. Worse, any attempt to route trucks through Kazakhstan would end with confiscation and destruction, the loss borne entirely by the exporter.
Russia strikes hard, harder than Washington or Brussels ever dared against Chinese manufacturing.
But the question remains—does Moscow truly have the confidence to shut China out?
When the war broke out in Ukraine and the West turned its back, the western car giants fled in a single file: Toyota, Volkswagen, Renault, Ford—not one stayed. In that vacuum, it was Chinese automakers who drove in against the headwind, who kept Russia’s roads moving, who restored a semblance of life to a market on the brink of collapse.
Yet somewhere between gratitude and dependency, something curdled. Chinese companies didn’t just supply; they dominated—smartphones, electronics, automobiles. What was once seen as rescue began to feel, in the Russian telling, like exploitation. The tone shifted: China is not helping us; China is profiting from us. And so, even in its moment of greatest vulnerability, Moscow has begun driving Chinese firms out—starting with the most visible symbol of their market power: the heavy truck.
The subtext is hard to miss. The moment Western sanctions loosen, Chinese suppliers will be the first shown the door. That is the quiet truth beneath the grand rhetoric of “strategic partnership”—a truth built on mistrust and a strange Russian instinct to sever the very rope holding them above the abyss.
Unlike the trade with the US and the EU, the China-Russian trade is no one-way street. By mid-2025, China was taking nearly one-third of Russia’s total exports and buying almost half its crude oil—the lifeblood of Moscow’s revenues. The trade flows are not lopsided: in the first half of the year, Russia sold China around $59 billion in goods and bought back $47 billion, a modest Russian surplus but no imbalance to lament. This is mutual dependence, deep and symmetrical.
Perhaps the Kremlin believes it is defending the last strongholds of domestic industry. Russian names like KAMAZ and Lada have been battered; Chinese trucks claimed over 60% of the market, leaving Russian factories idle and workers on the street. Protectionism became the rallying cry, the government’s answer to a competition it could not win.
Yet the irony runs deep: Lada was powered by French Renault’s technology of 1997, and with Renault gone, it is a hollow shell. KAMAZ itself relies heavily on Chinese components. Ban Chinese trucks—and all Chinese manufacturing—and you won’t just block foreign competition; you’ll be striking at the heart of Russia’s own brands. If China turns off the supply of parts, those brands will collapse.
Let the irony sink in: the country that kept the Russian car industry alive is China, 100%.
It would be very easy for China to retaliate.
It's China, in recent years, which has kept the Russian economy breathing at all.
One could suspect an even bolder motive—that Moscow is clearing the market for Western brands ahead of some anticipated thaw with Washington.
So we have two scales in motion: one weighing war and peace, the other balancing trust and trade. Both are swaying, and both could tip the wrong way.
There may be reasons beyond economics. Russia is impatient to end the war in Ukraine on its own terms, but Ukraine’s strength—fed by Western aid—remains stubborn. Perhaps Moscow expected Beijing to lean in harder, to tip the balance more openly. China, however, has kept its footing on the narrow ridge of neutrality. It does not wish Russia to fail, but neither will it be drawn into commitments it deems excessive. It will not, for example, pay a 30% premium for Russian gas when cheaper supplies are available elsewhere.
China has, after all, called this what it is—a war of invasion—and does not approve.
One decisive reason China cannot accept Russian territorial expansion is history. In the 19th century, weakened by wars with Western powers, Qing China was forced into a series of unequal agreements with Tsarist Russia — notably the Treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860) — that transferred large swathes of territory in the Amur–Ussuri region to Russia. In 1900, Russian troops and local authorities carried out brutal expulsions and mass killings of Qing subjects in the Amur region (Blagoveshchensk and the “Sixty-Four Villages”), leaving lasting scars. In the 20th century the Soviet Union pushed for Mongolia’s separate status, and in 1945 a Soviet-backed referendum confirmed Mongolian independence from China. Those episodes — land lost under coercion, mass violence against Chinese residents, and the effective removal of frontier regions from Chinese control — are why Beijing cannot view further Russian annexation as anything but a strategic red line.
If Russia justifies its invasion of Ukraine on the grounds that Ukraine was part of Russia for centuries, then by that same logic, Russia’s annexation of vast Chinese territories is invalid — for those lands had been part of China for centuries before Russia seized them. And if Moscow claims it can use force to “take back” Ukraine, then Beijing could claim the same right to recover its lost territories from Russia.
Russia’s nature is to act on its moods—swiftly, sharply, without the patient weighing of consequences. It is not wedded to market logic, nor skilled in market thinking; its policies turn as quickly as the wind.
Perhaps the Kremlin believes it is defending the last strongholds of domestic industry. Russian names like KAMAZ and Lada have been battered; Chinese trucks claimed over 60% of the market, leaving Russian factories idle and workers on the street. Protectionism became the rallying cry, the government’s answer to a competition it could not win.
Yet the irony runs deep: Lada was powered by French Renault’s technology of 1997, and with Renault gone, it is a hollow shell. KAMAZ itself relies heavily on Chinese components. Ban Chinese trucks—and all Chinese manufacturing—and you won’t just block foreign competition; you’ll be striking at the heart of Russia’s own brands. If China turns off the supply of parts, those brands will collapse.
Let the irony sink in: the country that kept the Russian car industry alive is China, 100%.
It would be very easy for China to retaliate.
It's China, in recent years, which has kept the Russian economy breathing at all.
One could suspect an even bolder motive—that Moscow is clearing the market for Western brands ahead of some anticipated thaw with Washington.
So we have two scales in motion: one weighing war and peace, the other balancing trust and trade. Both are swaying, and both could tip the wrong way.
There may be reasons beyond economics. Russia is impatient to end the war in Ukraine on its own terms, but Ukraine’s strength—fed by Western aid—remains stubborn. Perhaps Moscow expected Beijing to lean in harder, to tip the balance more openly. China, however, has kept its footing on the narrow ridge of neutrality. It does not wish Russia to fail, but neither will it be drawn into commitments it deems excessive. It will not, for example, pay a 30% premium for Russian gas when cheaper supplies are available elsewhere.
China has, after all, called this what it is—a war of invasion—and does not approve.
One decisive reason China cannot accept Russian territorial expansion is history. In the 19th century, weakened by wars with Western powers, Qing China was forced into a series of unequal agreements with Tsarist Russia — notably the Treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860) — that transferred large swathes of territory in the Amur–Ussuri region to Russia. In 1900, Russian troops and local authorities carried out brutal expulsions and mass killings of Qing subjects in the Amur region (Blagoveshchensk and the “Sixty-Four Villages”), leaving lasting scars. In the 20th century the Soviet Union pushed for Mongolia’s separate status, and in 1945 a Soviet-backed referendum confirmed Mongolian independence from China. Those episodes — land lost under coercion, mass violence against Chinese residents, and the effective removal of frontier regions from Chinese control — are why Beijing cannot view further Russian annexation as anything but a strategic red line.
If Russia justifies its invasion of Ukraine on the grounds that Ukraine was part of Russia for centuries, then by that same logic, Russia’s annexation of vast Chinese territories is invalid — for those lands had been part of China for centuries before Russia seized them. And if Moscow claims it can use force to “take back” Ukraine, then Beijing could claim the same right to recover its lost territories from Russia.
Russia’s nature is to act on its moods—swiftly, sharply, without the patient weighing of consequences. It is not wedded to market logic, nor skilled in market thinking; its policies turn as quickly as the wind.
Russia’s nature is to act on its moods—swiftly, sharply, without the patient weighing of consequences. It is not wedded to market logic, nor skilled in market thinking; its policies turn as quickly as the wind.
One thing diplomacy should never do is let itself be swayed by passing moods, anger, or a sense of perceived loss, without thinking long term and weighing all the circumstances. Russian diplomacy makes this mistake all too often.
And China? China’s automakers will need to close ranks, to speak with one voice, to engage with Moscow at the highest levels. The Chinese state will need to step forward, to defend the terms of trade. If Russia insists on acting alone in matters of economics, China has the means—and the precedent—to respond in kind.
What we are watching, in effect, is Russia imposing sanctions on China and daring China to answer.
And trucks are not the only victims of this sudden hostility.
Over the past three years, as the corporate armies of Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea withdrew en masse under the weight of sanctions and political pressure, Russia’s shelves emptied and its markets hollowed. What was left became a frontier—open, underpopulated, ripe for the taking.
For a time, Chinese sellers moved in almost unopposed. Platforms like AliExpress and Ozon found a Russia hungry for goods and stripped of alternatives. Chinese electronics, clothing, home appliances—all poured in, filling the vacuum left by the retreating West. It was not dispensable superfluous trade; it was an economic bridge across a sanctioned landscape.
However recently, beneath the appearance of prosperity, trouble is brewing.
The Russian e-commerce giant Ozon has recently turned hostile, abruptly targeting Chinese brand sellers. Overnight, tens of thousands of product listings disappeared. This wasn’t a technical glitch or a random system error—it was a deliberate purge of Chinese brand sellers. No one was spared: from small workshops to large merchants. Most surprising, the main targets were sellers with brand certifications—those who had invested heavily in brand authorization, product quality, and packaging. Meanwhile, unbranded small sellers were left untouched.
What happened? Some sellers say this was no accident. The platform wasn’t just enforcing rules—many listings were removed due to malicious reports from local competitors. Local accounts could flag a brand as “problematic,” and instead of verifying the claims, Ozon would remove the entire store’s listings. Yes, the entire store. This has created an absurd situation: stricter rules have become a weapon for unfair competition. A system meant to maintain order has turned into a tool to suppress rivals.
Even when sellers manage to restore their listings with platform help, the damage is done. Rankings and reviews are gone, forcing them to start over. The only way to regain visibility is through paid ads—and Ozon’s ads are expensive. Even the basic ad package costs 1,200 Yuan (USD 170), a heavy blow for small and medium-sized sellers.
The pattern is clear: any Chinese supplier whose products seriously compete with local brands will be pushed out and even in sectors where China has no serious rival, entry can be blocked, licenses revoked, rules rewritten overnight.
The contradiction is almost theatrical. On one stage, Russia courts Chinese sellers, eager for them to fill the gaps that Western brands have left. On another, it bars Chinese vehicles, imposes crushing taxes, and erects obstacles with the precision of a siege engineer. The applause and the expulsions come from the same hands.
One thing diplomacy should never do is let itself be swayed by passing moods, anger, or a sense of perceived loss, without thinking long term and weighing all the circumstances. Russian diplomacy makes this mistake all too often.
And China? China’s automakers will need to close ranks, to speak with one voice, to engage with Moscow at the highest levels. The Chinese state will need to step forward, to defend the terms of trade. If Russia insists on acting alone in matters of economics, China has the means—and the precedent—to respond in kind.
What we are watching, in effect, is Russia imposing sanctions on China and daring China to answer.
And trucks are not the only victims of this sudden hostility.
Over the past three years, as the corporate armies of Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea withdrew en masse under the weight of sanctions and political pressure, Russia’s shelves emptied and its markets hollowed. What was left became a frontier—open, underpopulated, ripe for the taking.
For a time, Chinese sellers moved in almost unopposed. Platforms like AliExpress and Ozon found a Russia hungry for goods and stripped of alternatives. Chinese electronics, clothing, home appliances—all poured in, filling the vacuum left by the retreating West. It was not dispensable superfluous trade; it was an economic bridge across a sanctioned landscape.
However recently, beneath the appearance of prosperity, trouble is brewing.
The Russian e-commerce giant Ozon has recently turned hostile, abruptly targeting Chinese brand sellers. Overnight, tens of thousands of product listings disappeared. This wasn’t a technical glitch or a random system error—it was a deliberate purge of Chinese brand sellers. No one was spared: from small workshops to large merchants. Most surprising, the main targets were sellers with brand certifications—those who had invested heavily in brand authorization, product quality, and packaging. Meanwhile, unbranded small sellers were left untouched.
What happened? Some sellers say this was no accident. The platform wasn’t just enforcing rules—many listings were removed due to malicious reports from local competitors. Local accounts could flag a brand as “problematic,” and instead of verifying the claims, Ozon would remove the entire store’s listings. Yes, the entire store. This has created an absurd situation: stricter rules have become a weapon for unfair competition. A system meant to maintain order has turned into a tool to suppress rivals.
Even when sellers manage to restore their listings with platform help, the damage is done. Rankings and reviews are gone, forcing them to start over. The only way to regain visibility is through paid ads—and Ozon’s ads are expensive. Even the basic ad package costs 1,200 Yuan (USD 170), a heavy blow for small and medium-sized sellers.
The pattern is clear: any Chinese supplier whose products seriously compete with local brands will be pushed out and even in sectors where China has no serious rival, entry can be blocked, licenses revoked, rules rewritten overnight.
The contradiction is almost theatrical. On one stage, Russia courts Chinese sellers, eager for them to fill the gaps that Western brands have left. On another, it bars Chinese vehicles, imposes crushing taxes, and erects obstacles with the precision of a siege engineer. The applause and the expulsions come from the same hands.
And this duality runs through the whole of the Russia–China trade relationship. For every deal signed in public with a smile, there is a private suspicion; for every joint statement about “mutual trust,” there is a bureaucratic knife slipped quietly between the ribs. Moscow wants Chinese capital, Chinese goods, and Chinese market for its oil and gas. But it also wants to believe it can keep China at arm’s length—never too close, never in control.
On one hand, Russia relies on China to fill its economic gaps, countering Western sanctions by importing goods to maintain a facade of normalcy. On the other hand, it resents China's growing dominance in its markets, as Chinese firms capitalize on Russia's isolation.
Similarly, Russia seeks to expand gas exports to China to offset lost European markets, but the Power of Siberia 1 pipeline, operational since 2019, is nearing capacity. A second pipeline, Power of Siberia 2, has been under discussion to boost exports, but progress stalls over routing disputes. Russia favors a path through Mongolia — not only for technical and cost reasons, but also to exploit Mongolia’s hostility toward China as a geopolitical lever. Beijing, however, opposes involving a third country, citing both strategic vulnerabilities and the risk of political friction, underscoring the underlying mistrust in their energy partnership.
This is the riddle: a partnership that is indispensable yet resented, profitable yet precarious, strategic yet unstable. The heavy truck ban is not an isolated policy—it is a rehearsal, a signal of how quickly Russia can turn from dependence to expulsion.
And so, from the highways to the online storefronts, the same truth holds: the moment Moscow senses it has an alternative—whether Western brands returning, or local industry recovering—China will be the first to be shown out into the cold.
For now, the shelves still carry Chinese goods, and Russian roads still roll on Chinese parts and vehicles. But the mood in the Kremlin has shifted. In a country where economic policy follows political instinct, where gratitude has a short half-life and suspicion an infinite one, the smoke from this “smokeless war” will not clear soon.
The so-called China–Russia partnership is, in truth, an accident of circumstance. Russia has been pushed toward Beijing largely by Western hostility and sanctions, not by any deep strategic alignment. Historically, Moscow has been just as eager as the Western bloc to contain China’s rise — a fact that sits uneasily beneath today’s façade of alliance.
The U.S. wants to use India to contain China—but the irony is, Russia also wants to use India to contain China. Beijing sees this game clearly, and it also knows exactly where such a combination will lead. India, playing both sides, staying close to Moscow while trying to squeeze benefits out of Washington—this is a balancing act the U.S. will never truly tolerate. It’s the same way Washington looks at Iran getting close to China while angling for favors from D.C.—always with suspicion and a bad taste in its mouth. China has already read the pattern. India buys cheap oil from Russia, then flips it on the international market with a 30% premium, even muscling into the U.S.’s own energy market share. That kind of encroachment will inevitably provoke Washington’s anger. And sure enough, we’re now watching India start to pivot toward China after having been brutally insulted and humiliated by Trump.
In BRICS, Russia was the one pushing to bring India in, against China’s protests, using New Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing.
In short, the irony is that both the United States and Russia—two rival powers each trying to use India as a counterweight to China—have ended up pushing India closer to Beijing instead. Maybe China should push India back to the US?
On one hand, Russia relies on China to fill its economic gaps, countering Western sanctions by importing goods to maintain a facade of normalcy. On the other hand, it resents China's growing dominance in its markets, as Chinese firms capitalize on Russia's isolation.
Similarly, Russia seeks to expand gas exports to China to offset lost European markets, but the Power of Siberia 1 pipeline, operational since 2019, is nearing capacity. A second pipeline, Power of Siberia 2, has been under discussion to boost exports, but progress stalls over routing disputes. Russia favors a path through Mongolia — not only for technical and cost reasons, but also to exploit Mongolia’s hostility toward China as a geopolitical lever. Beijing, however, opposes involving a third country, citing both strategic vulnerabilities and the risk of political friction, underscoring the underlying mistrust in their energy partnership.
This is the riddle: a partnership that is indispensable yet resented, profitable yet precarious, strategic yet unstable. The heavy truck ban is not an isolated policy—it is a rehearsal, a signal of how quickly Russia can turn from dependence to expulsion.
And so, from the highways to the online storefronts, the same truth holds: the moment Moscow senses it has an alternative—whether Western brands returning, or local industry recovering—China will be the first to be shown out into the cold.
For now, the shelves still carry Chinese goods, and Russian roads still roll on Chinese parts and vehicles. But the mood in the Kremlin has shifted. In a country where economic policy follows political instinct, where gratitude has a short half-life and suspicion an infinite one, the smoke from this “smokeless war” will not clear soon.
The so-called China–Russia partnership is, in truth, an accident of circumstance. Russia has been pushed toward Beijing largely by Western hostility and sanctions, not by any deep strategic alignment. Historically, Moscow has been just as eager as the Western bloc to contain China’s rise — a fact that sits uneasily beneath today’s façade of alliance.
The U.S. wants to use India to contain China—but the irony is, Russia also wants to use India to contain China. Beijing sees this game clearly, and it also knows exactly where such a combination will lead. India, playing both sides, staying close to Moscow while trying to squeeze benefits out of Washington—this is a balancing act the U.S. will never truly tolerate. It’s the same way Washington looks at Iran getting close to China while angling for favors from D.C.—always with suspicion and a bad taste in its mouth. China has already read the pattern. India buys cheap oil from Russia, then flips it on the international market with a 30% premium, even muscling into the U.S.’s own energy market share. That kind of encroachment will inevitably provoke Washington’s anger. And sure enough, we’re now watching India start to pivot toward China after having been brutally insulted and humiliated by Trump.
In BRICS, Russia was the one pushing to bring India in, against China’s protests, using New Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing.
In short, the irony is that both the United States and Russia—two rival powers each trying to use India as a counterweight to China—have ended up pushing India closer to Beijing instead. Maybe China should push India back to the US?
That mistrust runs deeper than people think. Behind the “no-limits” talk, Russia has long seen China’s rise as a threat—accusing Beijing of muscling into its backyard in Central Asia and profiting from global crises. When China launched the Belt and Road, Moscow rolled out its own “Greater Eurasian Partnership”—not to cooperate, but to block Chinese dominance in Eurasia.
Even railways became a battlefield. China’s push for international standard gauge (1,435 mm) through Central Asia bypasses Russia’s broad gauge (1,520 mm), undercutting Moscow’s control of transit routes. To Russia, that’s a strategic threat.
For years, the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway has stalled largely due to Russian opposition, and Beijing’s parallel efforts to develop rail links through Azerbaijan and other South Caucasus countries have faced similar Russian obstruction. The irony is that many of these states—Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, among others—are now pivoting toward the West, seeking to leave Russia’s sphere of influence, de-Russianize their economies, and in the process further isolate Moscow.
And the mistrust isn’t just on paper. Between 2008 and 2014, leaked war-game documents show Russia simulating Chinese invasions of its Far East.
China has noticed something else—Russia’s readiness to use force, even over small disputes on its allies.
Take the 2009 New Star incident.
On February 15, 2009, the Chinese-owned cargo ship MV New Star was in port at Nakhodka, near Vladivostok. A dispute over its cargo and customs clearance turned ugly. Russian border guards claimed the vessel left without permission, ignored repeated orders to return, and had to be stopped.
A Russian patrol boat opened fire after warning shots went unanswered. Shells hit the ship. The New Star fled toward open waters, took on water, and began sinking.
Sixteen crew members abandoned ship into freezing seas. Seven were rescued. Nine died.
You can see that for Russia, the threshold for using force is extremely low—almost non-existent. It will resort to military action against its ally over something as trivial as a customs dispute.
Contrast that with China. For years, China has been surrounded in the South China Sea by missiles, repeated provocations from proxies like the Philippines, U.S. carrier strike groups, 70,000 U.S. Marines stationed in the region, and repeated skirmishes. China’s response? Invisible electronic warfare, the maximum force used is water cannons. surveillance patrols with cameras. China's doctrine is avoid war at all cost. Document everything, avoid escalation.
Currently for China, Russia cannot be allowed to fail; should Moscow collapse, the West would grow too strong, tipping the global balance and piling unbearable pressure on Beijing.
China likely dictates the tempo of the Russia-Ukraine war. By imposing a hard ban on rare earth exports to the West for military use, Beijing has crippled the supply chain for advanced US/EU weapons. Without these materials, even U.S. missiles—already in critically short supply, as retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor has warned, enough for barely an eight-day war—cannot be replaced fast enough. It is no surprise that Washington and its allies have little choice but to wind down the Ukraine conflict. The war cannot continue because the flow of weapons can't keep up.
The paradox is stark: when Russia wields power, it uses leverage aggressively; China, by contrast, holds greater strength but strikes only sparingly—always on the defensive, rarely the first to move. That restraint is China’s secret and power. But when it does strike, it hits where it hurts most. China is a lot more effective in its restraint.
Even railways became a battlefield. China’s push for international standard gauge (1,435 mm) through Central Asia bypasses Russia’s broad gauge (1,520 mm), undercutting Moscow’s control of transit routes. To Russia, that’s a strategic threat.
For years, the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway has stalled largely due to Russian opposition, and Beijing’s parallel efforts to develop rail links through Azerbaijan and other South Caucasus countries have faced similar Russian obstruction. The irony is that many of these states—Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, among others—are now pivoting toward the West, seeking to leave Russia’s sphere of influence, de-Russianize their economies, and in the process further isolate Moscow.
And the mistrust isn’t just on paper. Between 2008 and 2014, leaked war-game documents show Russia simulating Chinese invasions of its Far East.
China has noticed something else—Russia’s readiness to use force, even over small disputes on its allies.
Take the 2009 New Star incident.
On February 15, 2009, the Chinese-owned cargo ship MV New Star was in port at Nakhodka, near Vladivostok. A dispute over its cargo and customs clearance turned ugly. Russian border guards claimed the vessel left without permission, ignored repeated orders to return, and had to be stopped.
A Russian patrol boat opened fire after warning shots went unanswered. Shells hit the ship. The New Star fled toward open waters, took on water, and began sinking.
Sixteen crew members abandoned ship into freezing seas. Seven were rescued. Nine died.
You can see that for Russia, the threshold for using force is extremely low—almost non-existent. It will resort to military action against its ally over something as trivial as a customs dispute.
Contrast that with China. For years, China has been surrounded in the South China Sea by missiles, repeated provocations from proxies like the Philippines, U.S. carrier strike groups, 70,000 U.S. Marines stationed in the region, and repeated skirmishes. China’s response? Invisible electronic warfare, the maximum force used is water cannons. surveillance patrols with cameras. China's doctrine is avoid war at all cost. Document everything, avoid escalation.
Currently for China, Russia cannot be allowed to fail; should Moscow collapse, the West would grow too strong, tipping the global balance and piling unbearable pressure on Beijing.
China likely dictates the tempo of the Russia-Ukraine war. By imposing a hard ban on rare earth exports to the West for military use, Beijing has crippled the supply chain for advanced US/EU weapons. Without these materials, even U.S. missiles—already in critically short supply, as retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor has warned, enough for barely an eight-day war—cannot be replaced fast enough. It is no surprise that Washington and its allies have little choice but to wind down the Ukraine conflict. The war cannot continue because the flow of weapons can't keep up.
The paradox is stark: when Russia wields power, it uses leverage aggressively; China, by contrast, holds greater strength but strikes only sparingly—always on the defensive, rarely the first to move. That restraint is China’s secret and power. But when it does strike, it hits where it hurts most. China is a lot more effective in its restraint.
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