• A tussle over a new gas pipeline deal exposed the power imbalance between Xi and Putin.

• Putin is dependent on the pipeline amid international sanctions.

• But China has also staked alot on Russia winning in Ukraine.

At the Shangri-La conference in Singapore on Sunday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused China of doing Russia’s bidding in seeking to disrupt a peace conference scheduled for June.

“Regrettably this is unfortunate that such a big independent powerful country as China is an instrument in the hands of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” said Zelenskyy of China, whose economy is vastly bigger than Russia’s.

Zelenskyy’s remarks highlight the increasing interdependence between China and Russia in the wake of Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion.

But the relationship has been lopsided. Rather than simply doing Putin’s bidding, Russia has so far largely been in Xi Jinping’s’ hands.

In the wake of its Ukraine invasion, Russia has been increasingly isolated on the world stage, and China has stepped in, providing vital economic, diplomatic, and (according to the US) military support in the form of dual-use components for Russia’s military industry.

A Financial Times report on Monday included important new details on the underlying power dynamic of the relationship, claiming the reason a massive new gas pipeline deal between Russia and China has stalled is that China is driving a hard bargain.

Sources told the FT that China would only commit to the deal if it gets the gas at the same heavily subsidized rates as it’s sold at in Russia and would accept a small fraction of the pipeline’s 50 billion cubic meters annual output.

It’s bad news for Russia’s President Putin, with the Russian gas industry having been badly impacted by sanctions and increasingly dependent on exports to non-Western countries, notably China.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has exploited the power imbalance in the China-Russia relationship. He has brokered influence in the Central Asian Republics, which have traditionally been part of Russia’s sphere of influence, and found a huge new market in Russia for Chinese exports such as vehicles.

But Xi is also increasingly dependent on his wager of a Russian victory in Ukraine coming good.

And he’s still keen to help Russia’s leader, with the FT reporting that boycotting the peace conference was one of the requests Putin made to Xi when the leaders met in May.

China is undergoing a serious economic downturn, and its support for Russia is imperilling its ties with wealthy Western economies, which its major businesses depend upon.

If Xi comes out of the Ukraine war with little to show, then his credibility and bid to assert China as the world’s major power will be seriously dented.

And that’s likely enough to ensure China will continue to do Russia favors.

Read the original article on Business Insider