Why Putin and Xi Are ‘Best Friends’

Rivals for centuries, China and Russia now have a de facto alliance, even if it’s failed to reach the high “no limits” bar that Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin set just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The economic, military and political ties nurtured over the past decade between the world’s two most powerful authoritarian states — both of which aim to upend at least parts of the US-dominated post-Cold War order — have grown as a result of the war, despite Ch