Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at who has leverage in the China-Russia relationship, India courting the Nordic region, and Ebola’s rising death toll in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

An Unbalanced Partnership

Just days after Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted U.S. President Donald Trump, Beijing welcomed another world leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin—long dubbed an “old friend” of Xi’s—arrived in China late Tuesday for a two-day summit coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship. The trip, Putin’s 25th visit to China as president, aims to reaffirm the two sides’ “core interests” amid a fractured geopolitical climate.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at who has leverage in the China-Russia relationship, India courting the Nordic region, and Ebola’s rising death toll in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

An Unbalanced Partnership

Just days after Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted U.S. President Donald Trump, Beijing welcomed another world leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin—long dubbed an “old friend” of Xi’s—arrived in China late Tuesday for a two-day summit coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship. The trip, Putin’s 25th visit to China as president, aims to reaffirm the two sides’ “core interests” amid a fractured geopolitical climate.

“We will continue to work hand in hand and spare no effort to deepen the Russia-China partnership and good-neighborly friendship,” Putin said on Tuesday ahead of the meeting, adding that bilateral ties were at a “truly unprecedented level.”

However, Russia’s growing economic troubles—from its war in Ukraine to the fallout of conflict in the Middle East—have transformed what the Kremlin considers to be an equal partnership into a more lopsided affair, as Moscow becomes increasingly dependent on Beijing.

Beijing is the largest buyer of Russian crude. Despite Western sanctions, China has purchased more than $367 billion worth of Russian fossil fuels since the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022. Last September, Xi and Putin agreed to build a roughly 1,600-mile........

© Foreign Policy