Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin—the world’s two most powerful autocrats—have a showy, if fraught, friendship. They are men of the same vintage (Putin, at sixty-nine, is eight months older), united in their grief for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Each styles himself a defender of manliness, and a bulwark against decadent democracy.
Xi, in an unusually effusive mood, by his standards, once offered Russian reporters a list of treasured moments that he and Putin had shared—including taking in a hockey game side by side and celebrating Putin’s birthday in Bali—and described the former K.G.B. officer as “my closest foreign colleague and my best confidant.”
At times, Xi has taken specific, admiring note of Putin’s tactics. In 2014, years before Xi cracked down on the power of billionaires such as Jack Ma, a prominent Chinese editor told me that Xi was impressed by Putin’s eviction of troublesome oligarchs and his skill in marginalizing his political predecessors. “He became his own man. This is very inspirational to our President,” the editor said.
Beyond the announcements of affection, however, Xi also saw the perils in some of Putin’s foreign-policy adventures.
After Russia’s annexation of Crimea, in 2014, Xi told others in Beijing that he respected the operation, the editor said, because Putin “got a large piece of land and resources,” and boosted his popularity at home. But, later, as the war in Ukraine dragged on, and contributed to Russia’s isolation, Xi became less complimentary.
He gave Putin some economic relief from Western sanctions, in the form of a four-hundred-billion-dollar deal to supply gas to China, but the deal set rates that favored Beijing. 
China, notably, never officially recognized the annexation of Crimea.
Eight years later, what does their bond mean for the current conflict, and foretell of potential future confrontations? How much diplomatic support will Beijing provide, and what does it say about China’s willingness to embark on missions of its own? As the invasion accelerated this week, scholars and strategists around the world looked for signs of new contours in global power.
Angela Stent, a Russia specialist at Georgetown University and the author of “Putin’s World,” said, “I want to underline that Vladimir Putin would not have embarked on this aggression against Ukraine at this time, if he didn’t know that he would have Chinese support.” Stent, one of several scholars who took stock of the China-Russia relationship during a forum on Wednesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, D.C., added,
“He knew that, whatever happened, the Chinese would be there for him,” and that the situation is “a different world” from the relative isolation that Putin faced after the seizure of Crimea. “I think this is the essential backdrop for understanding what Putin is doing,” she said.
By some standards, Russia and China are not natural geopolitical partners. China’s mistrust of Russia runs deep. Even in the heyday of Communist brotherhood, the two sides had long-standing territorial and ideological disputes, and Beijing resented its position as the junior partner to Moscow. These days, Russia’s economy, valued at $1.7 trillion, is scarcely larger than that of New York State. China, by contrast, has the largest or the second-largest G.D.P. in the world, depending on how it’s measured, and, despite stresses on its trade relations, the nation has productive trade links with the United States and Europe that dwarf Russia’s oil-and-gas sales.
But the Russian and Chinese leaders are united, in part, by their belief that the West is in an inexorable decline, which they have framed, in effect, as a vindication of autocracy. During the interview with Russian state media, in which Xi gushed about his friend, he explained their connection in terms that carry greater significance in light of recent events:
“We have similar views on the current world situation, have the same philosophy on national governance, and shoulder the historical responsibilities of the two countries’ respective development and revitalization. Most importantly, we have a highly consistent understanding of the strategic significance of Sino-Russian relations.”
That “strategic significance” is the key; their combined power is greater than the sum of its parts, or so the theory goes. And yet, for all the chumminess, the decision to draw close to Putin has forced Xi into an awkward balancing act, because he hopes to establish China as a trusted steward of global power and security—an alternative to the chaos and infighting in Washington.
Ukraine is one of China’s economic partners, with more than fifteen billion dollars in bilateral trade flows. It is also part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s signature infrastructural program, which is intended to project a spirit of magnanimous investment in the world’s improvement.
In the run-up to the invasion, Chinese officials avoided taking an emphatic role, resorting to bland appeals for peace.
On Tuesday, Wang Wenbin, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, made no fewer than seven references to calling on “all parties to exercise restraint” and “de-escalate the situation.” But, by Wednesday, hours before Russia unleashed its full-scale attack, China had taken a more openly pro-Russian position. Hua Chunying, another Foreign Ministry spokesperson, called the United States “the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine,” and gave voice to Putin’s grievances, asking, “When the U.S. drove five waves of nato expansion eastward all the way to Russia’s doorstep, and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons in breach of its assurances to Russia, did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?”
Historically, the Chinese Communist Party fretted about other powers seizing territory, fearing that someone could encroach on its own sovereignty. But, under Xi, it has become increasingly brazen about pursuing its territorial ambitions in the South and East China Seas; along the Indian border; and with regard to Taiwan, the democratically ruled archipelago that has become an object of rising threats. With those clashes in mind, Manoj Kewalramani, a China specialist at the Takshashila Institution, a think tank in Bengaluru, India, sees the current China-Russia relationship as a worrying indicator of a growing tolerance for disruptive confrontations.
“It’s clear that both sides believe that force and coercion, to varying degrees, and through various tools, are necessary to shape this new order,” he said, at the C.S.I.S. forum on Wednesday.
When Putin visited Xi in Beijing earlier this month, they released a major new statement of common purpose, which, notably, included China’s backing of Russia’s objections to nato expansion. Kewalramani regards that statement as “China stepping much further than it did in 2014.” He said, “This is a fundamental shift.”
That shift has inspired concern that Chinese leaders may be watching the invasion of Ukraine as a test case for their own long-held ambition to conquer Taiwan. “We empathize with Ukraine’s situation,” Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s President, said last month, as she announced a task force to study the tensions in Ukraine. On Wednesday, Tsai ordered Taiwan’s security forces to step up surveillance and defenses. But, although Beijing often dispatches warplanes toward Taiwan, there is no sign that an invasion is in the offing.
The more immediate risk, in the eyes of some in Taiwan and Washington, is that China will see Putin’s venture as a step toward the normalizing of more aggressive pressure tactics, including what Tsai called “cognitive warfare”—a mix of disinformation, political meddling, and incitement, intended to pry open internal divisions in Taiwan and make its people despair at their vulnerability.
For the moment, though, that is a secondary risk to whatever violence is now unfolding between armed forces and civilians in Ukraine.
Jude Blanchette, a China specialist at C.S.I.S. who hosted the group’s forum, suggested that if Ukraine becomes a quagmire—Putin’s Afghanistan—then it may be more of a deterrent than an incentive to observers in Beijing. “If there’s a prolonged, protracted war, with thousands of body bags heading home to Russia, Xi Jinping would do well to reflect on what a similar invasion and occupation in Taiwan might mean for China,” Blanchette told the audience. Later, in a conversation with me, he added, “
An ineffectual and half-hearted response by the West toward Putin’s invasion couldn’t but feed into Xi’s existing belief that America and its allies are weakening and divided.”
By Wednesday night, Russian missiles were striking Ukraine, and troops were landing on its southern coast. In a grim juxtaposition, the United Nations Security Council was still in session, appealing in vain for Putin to withdraw his attack. The United States announced plans to introduce a resolution condemning the actions.
Though the measure is doomed to be vetoed by Russia, it would likely force China to signal its commitments more clearly, by abstaining or by joining Russia’s position. The attempt to balance a commitment to Russia with China’s larger bid for global credibility is becoming more difficult by the hour. As violence escalated, China’s U.N. Ambassador, Zhang Jun, told his fellow-members of the Security Council, “We believe that the door to a peaceful solution to the Ukraine issue is not fully shut, nor should it be.”
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