China and Russia also find themselves united by a common rival: the United States.
The recent China-Russia entente is an unusual historical turn for two countries that have clashed ideologically and militarily in the last century.
But by the end of 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved — a moment both Xi and Putin cite as pivotal in shaping their respective worldviews. For Xi, the end of the Soviet Union was a warning that a rising China could face risks from within.
In a 2013 speech to other Chinese Communist Party leaders that was later leaked, the Chinese leader noted that when the USSR finally collapsed, the legions of apparatchiks who had long propped up the system utterly failed to defend it. "Proportionally, the Soviet Communist Party had more members than we do, but nobody was man enough to stand up and resist," Xi said.
Putin summed up his view on the collapse of the Soviet Union in a famous speech delivered in 2005 in which he called it the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.
Joseph Torigian, a historian at American University and the author of a forthcoming book on Sino-Soviet relations, says both Putin and Xi "have an idea that chaos must be avoided at all costs."
"They believe that when people are given the freedom to do whatever they want, they're easily exploited," Torigian says.
China and Russia also find themselves united by a common rival: the United States.
"The U.S. was already bashing China, and I think that really basically pushed China and Russia together to some extent," says Wang Huiyao, the director of a Beijing think tank, the Center for China and Globalization.
Now Xi and Putin visit each other's countries frequently. Putin is the first foreign leader Xi has met since China closed its borders internationally because of the COVID-19 pandemic. A Beijing museum exhibition featuring some of the state gifts that Putin has given Xi over the years — including a Russian smartphone and a replica of a Russian Orthodox church — opened late last month, the same day Russia sent troops into two separatist Ukrainian territories.
This month, China was among five countries that voted against holding a debate on the Ukraine crisis. It also abstained in a U.N. General Assembly vote deploring the Russian invasion. As part of last month's joint agreement, the day after Russia attacked Ukraine, China also removed all import restrictions on Russian wheat.
Such positions have forced China to choose between a rapidly solidifying coalition of economically powerful democracies on the one hand and its partnership with Russia on the other.
"China is actually very worried to see such a situation continue, as it has its own security reasons to see a peaceful Europe," says Wang, adding that Beijing nonetheless "certainly also disapproves of some of NATO's behavior as well, particularly the U.S. leading not only NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, but also expansion in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait."
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