Analyse d'Igor Delanoë sur les enjeux pour la Russie du sommet entre Donald Trump et Xi Jinping, publiée par le Middle East Institute Switzerland (12.05.2026).
The meeting between the American and Chinese presidents comes in a particularly tense bilateral and international context. Although the truce in the trade war waged by the Americans against the Chinese remains in effect, the economic dialogue between the two countries has stalled. Last January, the US intervention in Venezuela, a partner of Beijing, allowed Donald Trump to assert American hegemony over what the new American national security strategy describes as “the western hemisphere”. In the Middle East, the American-Israeli war launched on 28 February against Iran – another partner of Beijing – is disrupting energy prices on the global market and affecting Chinese energy supplies. Faced with the proliferation of American military interventions and the normalization of the use of threats and force by Washington, Moscow and Beijing are staging their political rapprochement, while Sino-Russian trade is flourishing ($61 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up 14.8 percent year-on-year). Vladimir Putin is expected to visit China during the second half of May, immediately after Donald Trump’s visit.
Russia’s Strategic Calculus
The most pressing question for Western chancelleries regarding Russia in the context of the meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping is whether China might scale back its partnership with Russia in the name of improved relations with the United States. This hypothesis, deemed unfavourable to Moscow, would, if realized, improve Ukraine’s position. Yet, according to early rumours about the agenda of the Sino-American discussions, Russia would not feature on the agenda, which is said to consist of four blocks: Iran, Taiwan, nuclear weapons, and bilateral trade. Russia’s shadow will nevertheless loom over the exchanges between the two presidents as they address the Iranian question and strategic arms control. Moscow will therefore observe this summit with a degree of confidence, all the more so since Donald Trump’s resort to force and threats – whether against Venezuela, Greenland or Iran – demonstrates how difficult it is to reach an agreement with the White House on a stable and lasting framework for discussion.
Furthermore, the American president’s timeframe is not that of the Chinese and Russian leaders: Donald Trump seeks to score points quickly and reap dividends, whereas Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin favour strategic patience. In other words, it is hard to imagine today, from Moscow’s perspective, a Sino-American “deal” that Russia might pay the price for or have imposed upon it. Moreover, given the many disagreements between China and the United States (bilaterally in terms of trade or artificial intelligence, and internationally on Taiwan and Iran), the likelihood of such an agreement appears low. Finally, the Kremlin remains convinced that the nature of the relationship between China and the United States remains confrontational. This Sino-American competition does not, however, preclude tactical arrangements in which Russia may be the object, and from which it may suffer or, conversely, benefit.
Russia’s Waiting Position on Iran
China has been directly affected by the price surge resulting from the Israeli-American campaign, as half of its oil imports come from the Gulf, and before the war, it imported 80 percent of Iranian oil exported by sea. The ensuing crisis, triggered by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, benefits Russia, which is reaping unexpected budget windfalls (Russian oil producers paid $9.5 billion to the federal budget in April, the highest level since October 2025) while posing risks to the Chinese economy. In other words, as long as the Iranian regime holds firm — neither China nor Russia are in favour of a regime change in Iran — the current status quo suits Russia, whereas China wants to see the Gulf crisis resolved. In response to this situation, Beijing enacted a law in early May instructing its companies not to comply with American sanctions targeting certain Iranian refineries – a novelty, as the Chinese have traditionally been cautious about sanctions imposed by Washington. This unprecedented stance by Beijing represents a challenge to Washington’s hegemony, exercised through the extraterritoriality of its law. The emergence of a “refusal front” against American sanctions, driven by China, remains a distant scenario, but a highly undesirable one for the United States. Yet the ground is fertile, given the BRICS framework and countries such as India that have been subjected to intense American pressure. These developments work in Russia’s favour in the long term.
Potential for a New Diplomatic Sequence on Ukraine?
Russia’s central strategic concern remains Ukraine and, via the Ukrainian battlefield, the hardening confrontation with Europe and NATO. The dialogue initiated with the Americans immediately after Donald Trump’s return to the White House has shown its limits. The trilateral dialogue between Russia, the United States, and Ukraine was already bogged down before 28 February and the outbreak of the Israeli-American war against Iran. Today, it has been reduced to exchanges of bodies and prisoners between Kyiv and Moscow. Given that the American-Israeli campaign against Iran is at an impasse, Donald Trump may once again turn his attention to the Ukrainian case, provided it can yield dividends quickly – at least before the midterm elections. China could play a facilitator role here, especially since Vladimir Putin is scheduled to travel to China just days after Donald Trump’s visit. In this context, the Russian president’s declaration on 9 May that the war in Ukraine could “approach its resolution” takes on particular significance. It should be recalled that China proposed a general framework for resolving this war in March 2023. In late September 2024, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Beijing and Brazil co-sponsored the “Friends for Peace” initiative to solve the conflict in Ukraine, which was endorsed by 17 countries of the so-called Global South. The Kremlin is also aware that after the November elections, Donald Trump’s position could weaken, and that it is therefore necessary to make the most of his support as quickly as possible. After the November midterm elections, Trump risks becoming a lame-duck president until the end of his term, as he did during his previous mandate. This sequence could therefore be conducive to Russia relaunching the diplomatic dimension of the settlement of the war in Ukraine, without, however, precluding the continuation of the military option, even as the Russian economy runs out of steam.
Moscow’s Close Monitoring of Strategic Arms Control
It is well known that Donald Trump has no interest in renewing the bilateral framework provided by the New START agreement, which entered into force in 2011 and expired last February, and whose objective is to control Russian and American strategic weapons stockpiles. The American administration wishes to establish a new framework conceived along trilateral lines, including China, Russia, and the United States. This position, already articulated during Trump’s first administration, had left the Russians dumbfounded while the Chinese flatly rejected it, given the major differential between Chinese strategic arsenals (fewer than 300 nuclear warheads at the time, 600 today) and those of Russia and the United States (approximately 5,500 and 5,000, respectively, today). In practice, associating China with a new strategic arms control agreement serves Russian interests. However, Moscow was cornered by the American administration, which had counted on the good relations between Russia and China to have Moscow convince Beijing to play along with a trilateral agreement. This discomfort is reflected in the Russian response, which demands that the French and British strategic arsenals be included in the future mechanism – a position already articulated at the time by the USSR and rejected by Paris and London.
Perspectives on Sino-Russian Relations
Beyond this summit, China and Russia perceive themselves as powers whose healthy bilateral relations constitute a factor of international stability. Faced with a United States whose idiosyncratic politics and uninhibited interventionism cause a growing degree of instability, Moscow and Beijing can only grow closer, beyond the current “no-limits” friendship. Yet, despite their varying degrees of confrontation with the United States, leaders in Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to enter into any military alliance. Both are too attached to their sovereignty and independence – a fact that limits their partnership. But this should not be seen as a weakness, but as a strength, since it gives them more flexibility in shaping their bilateral relationship. The argument of the asymmetry in the partnership – military, economic or demographic – is true, and the Russians speak of this imbalance with a certain unease. But it is certainly a mistake to conclude that China will subjugate Russia one way or another, since neither Moscow nor Beijing desires such a relationship. Actually, when one looks at the trajectory of the Russian-Chinese bilateral ties over the centuries, China and Russia are probably experiencing the best period of their shared history.
An Emerging Eurasian Bloc
Any rapprochement between the US and Russia or China should not, however, be viewed through the lens of a zero-sum game; an improvement in relations between Moscow and Washington will not necessarily come at the expense of the third party. For Moscow, the resolution of the war in Ukraine will not mark the end of its confrontation with the West, but rather a step in a long-term systemic confrontation. From this perspective, its partnership with China provides it with strategic depth, as already demonstrated since February 2022. Similarly, Beijing certainly also views its relationship with Moscow in terms of strategic depth (logistical, resource-wise, and political) in the context of its enduring competition with the United States, which clings to its contested hegemony. This Eurasian tandem seeks to manage security issues in its shared spheres of interest, as already seen in Afghanistan and Central Asia, through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or with the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Beyond, Chinese diplomacy has already been projected to the Gulf with the successful mediation of Beijing in March 2023 between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In that Eurasian perspective, Iran can be considered as a part of the Russian Chinese sphere of interest.
The Trump-Xi summit will be quietly monitored in Moscow from different perspectives: in the short term, it may deliver some outcomes related to the US-China bilateral agenda and perhaps contribute to the stabilization of the crisis in the Gulf. However, in the longer run, this summit can hardly undermine the Chinese-Russian rapprochement underpinned by deep-seated geopolitical dynamics.
Ru
