WSJ: The leader Xi Jinping once called his ‘role model’ is now Beijing’s supplicant, and China is making Putin wait for the gas deal Moscow badly needs

In 2013, when Xi Jinping became China's president, he made Moscow his first foreign stop and said Vladimir Putin was his role model. Putin impressed him as someone who could project global power despite an economy dependent on oil and gas rather than diversification. That relationship has fundamentally shifted. After more than four years of war and economic isolation, Putin traveled to Beijing in May desperate for a major energy deal, the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline that Russia badly needs. But China held all the leverage. According to Meduza, citing reporting by the Wall Street Journal, Beijing demanded that Russia sell them gas at domestic prices — well below market rate — and told Moscow not to raise the subject again until terms changed. Putin left with dozens of joint declarations but not the pipeline deal he came for. The math explains why: Russia now depends on China for nearly forty percent of its foreign trade, while Russia represents less than four percent of China's. Analysts say Beijing is content to let Russian desperation deepen before committing to any new energy deal. The alliance still holds, with China buying Russian oil and providing critical defense components, but it's rooted in shared opposition to the West rather than common ground — and the fractures are starting to show.

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