China and Russia’s 2022 proclamation of a “no limits” partnership with “no ‘forbidden’ areas” has had a far-reaching effect. The agreement implied that Beijing and Moscow were about to resurrect their long-defunct alliance that, when it briefly bound the two powers in the 1950s, projected a formidable threat that the United States could not afford to leave unchallenged.
Regardless of their various disagreements, Chinese President Xi Jinping has called Russian President Vladimir Putin his “dear friend” and was overheard in March 2023 telling him that the two of them were together “driving changes unseen in a century.” Their frequent meetings have produced a set of programmatic statements that highlight a shared opposition to “hegemonism”—a code word for American dominance—and promise a more “just” international order. According to Russia’s ambassador to China, Igor Morgulov, Xi has accepted Putin’s invitation to attend Victory Day celebrations in Moscow in May 2025. And their partnership has extended beyond rhetoric and symbolism: China has provided material support for Russia’s brutal war of aggression in Ukraine in the form of dual-use technologies, which have both military and commercial applications, and purchases of Russian oil and gas.
And yet China’s leadership remains conflicted about Russia, fearing entanglement in Putin’s radical anti-Western schemes and eyeing with apprehension the prospect of a cold war that China neither wants nor knows how to fight. Beijing does not want to commit to a formal Chinese-Russian alliance and bitterly resists the idea that it belongs to an “axis” of some sort with Russia, North Korea, and Iran. And Kim Jong Un’s regime in Pyongyang is increasingly the main source of irritation in Beijing.
In January 2025, I took part in discussions in Beijing and Sanya, China, organized by Tsinghua University, that were intended to serve as a form of Track II diplomacy, a practice in which nonstate civil society actors from various countries meet to discuss relations between their governments. This dialogue brought together academics and former senior officials and diplomats from China, Russia, and the United States for heated but productive conversations.
One striking insight emerged from these talks: the main reason for Beijing’s seeming unwillingness to build a trilateral coalition with Russia and North Korea is that such an arrangement would call for strategic leadership by China, and Beijing is decidedly uninterested in such a prospect. That is partly because any axis led by Beijing would require a mission around which its allies could unite—and no one in Beijing seems to know what that mission should be.
China’s hesitancy to head an alliance of unreliable partners in a struggle against the West suggests that its leaders are aware of the high costs of confrontation and are hedging their bets. President Donald Trump’s unconventional diplomacy, which pairs militant rhetoric and threats of economic warfare with promises of great power cooperation with China and Russia, has added to uncertainty in Beijing about the United States’ direction. As a result, Washington has a golden opportunity to test China’s intentions through renewed diplomatic efforts, even while gearing up for containment.
LEADER’S REMORSE
The consultations I attended focused on the question of China’s relationship with the rogue regime in North Korea. In the Chinese participants’ view, Beijing did not encourage Kim’s recent pivot to Russia, which culminated in a treaty of alliance with Russia in June 2024; indeed, it seems likely that Beijing was not even consulted in advance of this move. Nor did Xi approve North Korea’s direct involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has included the deployment of some 10,000 North Korean soldiers to Russia’s Kursk region, to repel a Ukrainian incursion. This move showed Kim’s ability and willingness to act independently of Beijing, even as he continues to rely on trade with China for his regime’s survival. In offering troops and large quantities of munitions to Putin, Kim has made a point of showing Xi that he is not China’s vassal.
The Russians at these consultations lamented the lack of coordination among China, North Korea, and Russia. Putin, who meets frequently, albeit separately, with Xi and Kim, would like to have a trilateral summit to forge closer relations among all three countries. But Xi and Kim have not seen each other since 2019. The countries formerly held trilateral consultations, most recently in October 2018, but North Korea now resists such meetings, preferring the company of Russia to China.
Beijing, too, is unwilling to create a bloc in East Asia, partly out of fear that it would cause Japan, South Korea, and the United States to build a more overtly anti-China bloc. The Chinese also worry, much more than the Russians do, about North Korea’s nuclear program. The Russians have pragmatically resigned themselves to a nuclear North Korea. But Beijing, seeing the potential knock-on effects in Japan and South Korea—which could be pushed to start nuclear programs of their own—may be keen to resume denuclearization talks with Pyongyang, even if the goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula appears out of reach. Some Chinese participants expressed concern about North Korean militancy, including the possibility that the Kim regime will launch military provocations against South Korea. Unsurprisingly, China fears being dragged into a conflict by a restless, unpredictable, and generally unreliable client state—whether it is North Korea or Russia.
China’s reticence to serve as the standard-bearer for Pyongyang is not new. When, in March 1990, the Chinese Communist Party’s general secretary, Jiang Zemin, visited North Korea, General Secretary Kim Il Sung promised him that “the Korean people would unswervingly continue to hold high the banner of revolution and socialism … and fight shoulder to shoulder with the Chinese people in the common cause of building socialism.” He was hopeful that, following the Soviet collapse, China would lead the struggle on behalf of the Communist cause. But Beijing, in no hurry to take up the discarded banner of Soviet socialism, demurred, focusing instead on economic reform and a pragmatic foreign policy, dubbed taoguang yanghui (“hiding one’s capabilities and biding one’s time”). China went on to establish diplomatic ties with South Korea, and although Beijing did not break with Pyongyang, the relationship never regained the intimacy of the early Cold War, when the two fought together against the United States. China and North Korea would never again be, in the words of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, “as close as lips and teeth.”
FAILURE TO SIGNAL
Chinese leaders may be looking for lessons from the last time the superpowers faced off. Historians have conflicting answers about why the Cold War started: whether Joseph Stalin wanted it or whether it was an unfortunate accident. It seems plausible that what Stalin really wanted was a great-power compromise with the United States, according to which Moscow and Washington would respect each other’s legitimate spheres of influence. The problems began when Washington and Stalin diverged on how far into Europe and Asia Moscow’s legitimate sphere of influence should extend. Reacting to what it perceived as aggressive moves by Moscow, Washington, wary of underestimating Stalin’s expansionist ambitions, pursued containment.
Beijing’s predicament today is that it does not know how to reassure the United States that it is not seeking another cold war even as it actively prepares to wage one. China’s relentless nuclear buildup, its hostile espionage operations, its militant rhetoric, and, above all, its support for Russia suggest that Xi has already made his call and that a confrontation with the United States is inevitable.
China’s relationships with Russia and North Korea remain useful in its struggle against Western hegemony. Chinese strategists think in simple geopolitical terms: the United States, leader of the West, is trying to bring China down; Putin is confronting the West with his war in Ukraine; therefore, Putin is helping China, and cannot be thrown under the bus. Similarly, China will not completely abandon North Korea, not because it approves of Kim, but because he remains a valuable weapon against the United States.
On the other hand, getting too invested in the relationship with a militant Russia would box Beijing in. Xi’s fraternal embrace of Putin has damaged China’s standing in Europe: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock criticized China in December 2024 for “opposing our core European interests with its economic and weapons aid to Russia,” and French President Emmanuel Macron pressed Xi to curb support for Moscow during their talks in May 2024. Given that China’s trade relationship with the European Union is worth $762 billion and has become all the more critical amid China’s economic stagnation, strategists in Beijing must ask themselves whether the economic polarization that would accompany an emerging cold war is really in China’s interest. Foreign Minister Wang Yi, for his part, went out of his way at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025 to reassure European leaders that Beijing does not plan to overthrow the existing global order.
Yet, as the experience of the present and previous centuries have shown, economic ties do not preclude great-power conflict. Putin’s reckless gamble in Ukraine demonstrated his willingness to sacrifice lucrative economic ties to Europe for glory. And no Chinese diplomat or academic, no matter how well connected, can confidently speak for Xi who, like Putin, may yet choose confrontation with the West.
TALK ISN’T CHEAP
One of the most important ways that Xi will signal his intentions vis-à-vis the West will be the course he decides to take with Taiwan. “No one can ever sever the bond of kinship between [Taiwan and the mainland], and no one can ever stop China’s reunification,” he announced in his 2025 New Year message. Like his predecessors, Xi has refused to renounce the possible use of force to unify China and Taiwan. But unlike them, he has imbued his comments with a great sense of urgency, as if he has already made up his mind about invading Taiwan and is just waiting for an opportunity to do so.
It is possible, however, that Xi is genuinely undecided and is biding his time as he anticipates the U.S. response. Here, too, Cold War lessons apply. Stalin badly miscalculated Washington’s response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950, in part because he concluded from intelligence gathered from cable intercepts that the United States would not intervene to defend South Korea. He failed to foresee how Washington’s threat perceptions and policies had evolved in response to Moscow’s aggressive moves. Xi, too, could conclude that Washington is not serious about Taiwan’s defense and act accordingly. And like Stalin, he could err in his calculation, with even more tragic consequences for the world.
Just as the escalations of the Cold War were contingent and gradual, with moments of tension punctuated by efforts to set things right, the U.S.-China relationship today is not beyond redemption, even if it is far along the road to confrontation. If it does not want to proceed from learning about the Cold War to fighting a new one, the Chinese government should not act as if it does not want a dialogue with the United States.
Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China during the Biden administration, faced diplomatic obstruction and had very little access to Chinese policymakers. China has snubbed the Pentagon’s efforts to maintain military-to-military dialogue, and although former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin finally met his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun in May 2024, contacts remain sporadic. Such stonewalling could be a way to signal displeasure with what China perceives as Washington’s hawkishness, but, intentionally or not, it sends another message: that Beijing is already firmly set on a new cold war.
The U.S.-China relationship is not beyond redemption.
Beijing should instead signal to Washington, in public or through private channels, that China does not plan to invade Taiwan in the foreseeable future. It should tone down public rhetoric about impending “reunification” to provide a foundation for building desperately needed trust.
Beijing should also make it clear that it does not seek an alliance with Moscow. The “no limits” partnership, which produced great alarm in the West with no gain to China, is a reminder that what Beijing says about its relationship with Russia can have direct impact on Western threat perceptions. The disappearance of “antihegemonic” language from Chinese-Russian statements will not eliminate U.S. concerns about an emerging axis, but it will at least chip away at the substantial evidence for such concerns.
Most important, China’s leaders should become more directly involved in helping end Russia’s war in Ukraine. As the key buyer of Russia’s hydrocarbons and a major provider of industrial and consumer goods to Russia, China has substantial economic leverage in the relationship, which it could deploy to encourage Putin to accept a cease-fire. A frozen conflict would not run counter to China’s interest in avoiding escalation in Ukraine, it would stabilize relations with Europe, and might even present an area of overlap between Beijing and the Trump administration, which has signaled its interest in a cease-fire regardless of a comprehensive settlement of the war. Given Wang’s comments in Munich that “all parties and all stakeholders should, at an appropriate time, participate in the peace talks process,” and Trump’s intention to hold peace talks with Russia, now is the time for China to signal its interest in a direct and substantive dialogue with the United States on the war in Ukraine.
LEARNING FROM LAST TIME
When clouds began to settle over the U.S.-Soviet relationship in 1945, President Harry S. Truman confidently predicted that he would get his way 85 percent of the time because, as he put it, “the Soviet Union needed us more than we needed them.” The reality proved more complex. Fearing that the Americans would interpret any Soviet concessions as weakness, Stalin instructed his foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, to “display complete obduracy.” Today, the United States, without a nuclear monopoly and facing a much more powerful adversary in China, cannot aspire to Truman’s predicted success rate. Active diplomacy, then, is Washington’s best hope to mitigate and maybe even reverse the slide into confrontation with Beijing.
First, the United States should redouble its efforts to dissuade Taiwan from proclaiming independence, a highly destabilizing move that would have dangerous consequences for East Asia and the world. Washington could tie its Taiwan diplomacy to private reassurance from China that it will not invade the island.
At the same time, the United States should also tell China frankly that Washington will be forced to prepare for a conflict over Taiwan unless Beijing shows through public statements and a demonstrated willingness to engage in confidence-building measures in East Asia that it is not seeking another cold war. Such measures could include reciprocating Trump’s call for arms control, developing military-to-military contacts, and refraining from provocative military exercises.
Active diplomacy is Washington’s best hope to mitigate the slide into confrontation with Beijing.
When he was national security adviser and secretary of state under President Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger scolded Democrats for preaching human rights to the Soviet Union. He correctly understood that such posturing annoyed the Soviets and made diplomacy more difficult. He scored formidable victories against the Soviet Union by pioneering rapprochement with China and outfoxing the Kremlin in the Middle East, nonetheless. The United States should now channel Kissinger in its approach to China and refrain from lecturing Beijing about democratic values, which alarm China’s leaders and do little to improve human rights in China. Trump would seem to have a natural proclivity to avoid the subject, since he has never trafficked in the liberal internationalist language of his predecessors.
Trump should also offer China a direct role in bringing Russia to the table to end the war in Ukraine. Beijing already has a point man for Russia and Ukraine in Ambassador Li Hui and has already issued statements about the need for peaceful resolution. By inviting Beijing to negotiations, Trump could test China’s goodwill and, if an agreement is reached, make sure that China has a stake in implementing a cease-fire.
February 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Soviet treaty of alliance. The seemingly impregnable alliance was in fact riven by internal contradictions and lasted for only about ten years before it collapsed in a cloud of mutual accusations of betrayal. China’s decision to pursue modernization and development in partnership, rather than in confrontation with the West, spared it from the Soviet Union’s fate. Today, China and Russia are once again working together, but their relationship is not an alliance and is far from “no limits.” With the possibility of another cold war looming, China is uncertain about whether it really wants to lead an axis of obstinate and unreliable clients into confrontation with the United States. It is both countries’ interests to make use of this uncertainty to explore alternative arrangements.