Three weeks ago, the leaders of China and Russia declared that the friendship between their countries “has no limits” as they met in Beijing on the eve of the Winter Olympics. But that was before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a gambit that is testing just how far China is willing to go.
The nuclear-armed neighboring giants have grown closer in recent years, raising the specter of an alliance of authoritarian states that could challenge a U.S.-led democratic West in a new Cold War. Yet China has much to lose in such a scenario, and President Xi Jinping has spoken out against the “Cold War mentality” of those who portray his country's rise as a threat.
