China-Russia, from Little to Big Brother

Mark O'Neill September 10, 2025 16:25

On December 6, 1949, Mao Zedong travelled to Moscow to see Josef Stalin for the first time. Stalin kept him in a dacha watching Soviet propaganda films for several days before meeting him in the Kremlin on the night of December 16.

He forced Mao to give up sovereignty over Outer Mongolia, historically part of China. It became a state under Soviet control. Stalin agreed to send thousands of Soviet experts to build steel and other heavy industrial projects, a great boon to the new state.

It was clear to everyone who was Big Brother and who was Little Brother.

Wind the clock forward to September 3, 2025. International War Criminal Vladimir Putin is delighted to be invited to Beijing to attend celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, to show that he is not a pariah in the diplomatic world.
How the world has turned on its head. China’s economy is eight times larger than that of Russia.

Russia’s GDP last year was about US$2.1 trillion, slightly more than the US$2.0 trillion of Guangdong province and less than the US$2.3 trillion of Italy.
Russia is the largest country in the world, with 17.125 million square kilometres, one eighth of the world’s inhabited arable area. It has the greatest mineral reserves of any country on earth, with half of the world’s coal. Not content with that, Putin wants the 603,628 square kilometres of Ukraine as well.

Of Russia’s exports of US$434 billion in 2024, 45 per cent were primary goods – crude oil, natural gas and agricultural products.

By contrast, in 2024, China’s exports reached a record US$3.58 trillion, with the main items electrical and electronic equipment, machinery, and motor vehicles.

Putin has been in power since 2000. In that time, he has launched five wars – two in Chechnya, one in Georgia, one in Crimea and east Ukraine in 2014 and, in February 2022, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In the same period, China has become the world’s second largest economy, after the U.S., and industrial superpower. Russia is only a superpower in arms, nuclear weapons and aerospace.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, it has become increasingly dependent on China, which sells it high-value manufactured goods, including cars, tractors, electronics, and machinery and dual-use parts and components that can be used by its armament factories.

Russia’s exports to China are largely coal, gas and oil. In 2023, 32.7 percent of Russia’s total exports went to China and 52.8 percent of Russia’s imports came from China. By contrast, Russia accounts for about six per cent of China’s exports.

The longer the war goes on, the more this dependency will increase. The war has made Russia excluded from trading with the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea.

During Putin’s visit to Beijing, he and President Xi Jinping signed a memorandum of understanding to build the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. It could deliver an additional 50 billion cubic metres of gas per year to China from the Arctic gas fields of Yamal.

For years, Putin has been lobbying Xi to agree to this. He won his signature finally. But key details remain to be agreed – the price of the gas and who will pay to build the pipeline. China will demand steep discounts for the price of the gas.

Ordinary Russians have paid a heavy price for Putin’s war, according to the Moscow Times in an article published on July 30 by Tatyana Rybakova.

“Thirty-eight percent of Russians have no savings at all. Another 24 per cent could last only a month or two without a pay check. Only seven per cent could save enough for half a year, and just six per cent for longer. For two decades, Russians have had to spend about 30 per cent of their income on food.

“One in three Russians cannot afford essential medicines. Physicians have adapted, prescribing the miraculous properties of oak bark for cancer or plantain for anxiety. It resembles the old Soviet joke in which doctors advised rich patients to eat fruit, middle class patients to eat vegetables and the poor to take long walks. Fresh air may soon be back on prescription pads.”

She said the rich and well-connected were flourishing. “Senior officials, legislators and their entourages are comfortable, without accounting for the vast unofficial income earned through corruption.

“For two years, economists have asked whether Putin can afford his war, and the consensus seems to be yes. But the Soviet Union could still afford its wars in 1988. Tanks kept rolling off the lines until the very end. What it could not afford was its people — hence the empty shelves that hastened its collapse.

“Putin will always find money for his war. It is less certain whether he will find money for his own people. Unlike Mikhail Gorbachev, he shows no reluctance to use violence to maintain control. Will he do so when — not if — the shelves start to empty?” she said.

Will Xi come to his aid then?

Mark O'Neill

A Hong Kong-based writer, teacher and speaker.