Chinese–Russian military cooperation expands — The Economist
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping (Photo: Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov/Pool via REUTERS)
Moscow and Beijing are stepping up military cooperation, and
China
is drawing on the modern military knowledge, technology, and combat experience
Russia gained in its war against Ukraine as it prepares for a possible attack
on Taiwan, The Economist wrote
on July 23.
The magazine noted that China has not fought in a war since a brief border conflict with Vietnam in 1979.
According to new European intelligence cited by The Economist, Chinese troops have been training since 2024 in drone operations and urban combat at a military range near Volgograd, Russia. Western officials are especially concerned about Chinese unmanned aerial systems because China is the world’s largest drone manufacturer and was an early producer of military drones.
“China has been especially keen to learn from the Russian navy’s experiences (mostly bad but better lately) in fending off Ukrainian naval drones in the Black Sea,” the article said.
Western analysts also believe Russia is cooperating with China on torpedo design and anti-submarine warfare. Russia has decades of data on the acoustic signatures of U.S. submarines that would make them easier to detect. China has been collecting similar data on a large scale but began later and, U.S. officials say, has less experience interpreting it.
The Economist also identified air- and missile-defense cooperation as another area of exchange. The report said China may be skeptical of some Russian systems after recent failures near Russian cities and problems reported in Venezuela and Iran, and that China’s own interceptors now compare favorably with Russian models. Still, Russia retains significant expertise in strategic early-warning systems that use over-the-horizon radars and infrared satellites.
Beijing officially downplays the scale of its military cooperation with Moscow and denies training its forces based on lessons from the Ukraine war. But The Economist said an increasing body of intelligence, documents, and expert testimony points to the opposite.
“An end to the war in Ukraine would reduce China’s leverage over the Kremlin, especially if Western sanctions on Russia are eased,” the magazine concluded.
“But a weakened Mr Putin would probably still need favours
from China. And Russia may also descend into chaos, triggering an outflow to
China of its best military expertise and technology. Either way, China stands
to benefit in a manner that could alter the strategic landscape in Asia for
decades to come.”
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