Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

In this podcast, we'll take a look at China-Russia relations and how recent developments,

including Russia's war on Ukraine and a shared antagonism with the West,

are increasing the need for closer ties between Moscow and Beijing.

Want to know more? Stay with us.

Russia and China share a long and Beijing. Want to know more? Stay with us. Russia and China share a long and complicated history, with periods of cooperation, alternating

with tensions over their extensive shared border, communist doctrine, or most recently, COVID-19

responses. Although they're not formal treaty allies, meaning they aren't bound to come to the other's

defense, they call each other strategic partners and have strengthened ties since 2012

when Xi Jinping climbed to the top of the country's political system.

Since then, Russian and Chinese official rhetoric has portrayed their relation as being at their

best point in history, cooperating on all issues, including international affairs, military and

technological development, driven in part by their common antagonism with the West, which

both countries consider a rising threat to their regimes.

At a meeting in February 22, just hours before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics,

and only a few days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin said their partnership

has no limits and vowed to deepen cooperation on various fronts.

Although it remains unclear whether Putin

had informed his friend of his intentions to invade Ukraine.

But rhetorics don't always match reality.

No, they don't, and their relationship has seen major shifts since 1992.

At the outset, China's population was greater than Russia's and the two countries

...