China and Russia have no formal military alliance, nor have the two countries signed a NATO-style mutual defence treaty. But through military training, joint naval and air exercises, exchanges of defence technology, intelligence cooperation and economic coordination to counter Western sanctions, their relationship has reached a point that analysts regard as an effectively “undeclared” or “shadow military alliance”.
Countries such as Iran and North Korea have joined this cooperation. China and Russia’s closeness is therefore now seen not only as a bilateral relationship but as part of a wider coordination among authoritarian powers to counter the influence of the United States and its allies.
A fact-finding report published by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), which reports to the US Congress, sets out the military, economic and technological sides of the China-Russia relationship. It says China has become increasingly indispensable to Moscow as Western sanctions and restrictions on technology exports to Russia have grown since the war in Ukraine. Beijing, for its part, is using Russia’s dependence to gain military and technological advantages without taking on the obligations of a formal alliance.
Secret military training: China draws on the Ukraine war
One of the most important parts of China-Russia military cooperation is training each other’s troops. Information from three European intelligence agencies and documents they have seen show that about 200 Russian soldiers were secretly trained in China in late 2025. Some of them later fought in the war in Ukraine, the intelligence sources said.
Under a bilingual Russian-Chinese agreement, senior military officials of the two countries signed an understanding on this training in Beijing on 2 July 2025. Russian troops were to be trained at several military facilities in China, including Beijing and Nanjing. The same agreement also set out plans to train hundreds of Chinese soldiers at Russian military facilities.
The training covered drone operation, electronic warfare, military aviation and armoured infantry operations. China’s advanced drone technology and flight simulators were also reportedly used to train the Russian troops.
A European intelligence agency has verified the identities of several of the trained Russian soldiers. It says some of them took part directly in combat by operating drones in the occupied Ukrainian regions of Crimea and Zaporizhzhia.
When the report was published, China’s foreign ministry reiterated its neutral position on the war in Ukraine. It said China supports peace talks and that the parties concerned should not try to escalate tensions or shift blame.
At least 119 joint military exercises so far
China and Russia’s military cooperation is not limited to training. According to the USCC, the two countries took part in at least 119 joint military exercises across their land, naval and air forces between 2003 and April 2026.
They have held joint naval exercises every year since 2012. Joint bomber patrols began in 2019 and joint naval patrols in 2020. In recent years the geographical reach of these activities has also grown.
In July 2026 China and Russia held a joint naval exercise called “Joint Sea-2026”, which included submarine and anti-submarine operations and drone operations. After the exercise the two navies also took part in a joint maritime patrol in the Pacific.
Chinese defence ministry spokesman Jiang Bin said on 17 July that the two militaries had successfully completed all planned activities. In his words, the exercises are not aimed at any third country but are part of improving the two forces’ ability to deal with maritime security.
The USCC’s assessment, however, says that despite the growth in joint exercises, full coordination or interoperability between the two militaries has not yet developed, and their experience of joint operations on a real battlefield is limited.
Growing mutual dependence in arms and technology
Russian arms and technology once played a large part in China’s military modernisation. The USCC report says that from the 1990s to the early 2020s, 77 percent of China’s total arms imports came from Russia. In that period Beijing bought about $38.5 billion worth of arms from Russia.
As China’s own defence industry has advanced, however, its dependence on Russian arms has fallen. Conversely, Russia, under pressure from Western sanctions since the Ukraine war, has become more dependent on Chinese technology and industrial inputs.
The USCC report says 90 percent of the sanctioned technology goods entering Russia in 2026 came from China. Since 2022 China has exported $10.3 billion of critical technology and dual-use goods to Russia, including semiconductors, drone parts, electronic circuits and machinery.
The report also says Ukrainian military intelligence documents show Chinese mini-computers, GPS modules, motors, batteries and storage drives in the V2U autonomous drones used by Russian forces. Supplies of drone engines and other parts from China have also helped Russia increase its drone production, the report says.
Chinese technology is also increasingly used in Russian-made weapons and military equipment. The USCC report mentions that Russia has the Chinese-made “Silent Hunter” laser system, which can be used against drones.
Cooperation on surveillance, satellites and space technology
Space and intelligence technology is another important area of military cooperation. The USCC report says China is alleged to have supplied satellite imagery for Russia’s war effort, which could help identify targets in Ukraine and plan Russian attacks. Not all information about such cooperation could be independently verified, however.
The two countries are also working to coordinate their satellite navigation systems. Steps have been taken to increase links and data exchange between China’s BeiDou and Russia’s GLONASS systems, which could improve military communications, positioning and battlefield surveillance.
The report also mentions growing cooperation in artificial intelligence, quantum technology, advanced nuclear energy and space research. During the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in May 2026, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom signed research agreements with various Chinese institutions on nuclear fusion, nuclear medicine, photonics and quantum technology.
Wider coordination around Iran and North Korea
Alongside China and Russia’s closeness, Russia’s military cooperation with Iran and North Korea has also raised concern in Western countries. A study published by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a European policy research centre, says various kinds of cooperation among Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have intensified around the war in Ukraine.
The study notes that drone production and technical cooperation with Iran, and North Korea’s supply of troops and ammunition, have played a part in Russia’s conduct of the war. It says North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces are also gaining experience of modern warfare.
The study, however, offers no evidence that these countries have formed an organised, unified military command or a formal alliance. Instead it analyses the arrangement as a network of cooperation built on each country’s own interests.
An alternative economic system to counter Western sanctions
Economic ties are also a major foundation of China-Russia cooperation. When Western sanctions disrupted Russia’s foreign trade and financial transactions after the Ukraine war, China became one of Moscow’s main economic partners.
According to the USCC, bilateral trade between the two countries reached $244.8 billion in 2024. By 2024, more than 90 percent of their trade was also settled in roubles and Chinese yuan, reducing dependence on the dollar and the euro.
Russian banks’ participation in CIPS, China’s cross-border interbank payment system, has also grown. The USCC report says the number of financial institutions directly participating in the system rose from 76 in February 2022 to 210 in June 2026.
This financial system is helping Russia blunt the impact of Western sanctions, while also increasing Moscow’s dependence on China’s financial system.
Still reluctant to form a formal military alliance
However close China and Russia have become, their relationship cannot yet be called a formal NATO-style military alliance. There is no mutual defence treaty between them, and no obligation for one to join a war directly if the other is attacked.
The USCC’s assessment says that while Russia is becoming increasingly dependent on China, Beijing wants to keep its strategic independence by avoiding the obligations of a formal alliance. Fear of becoming Russia’s junior partner, the two countries’ different nuclear policies, mistrust over intelligence and differences in regional interests also act as limits on the relationship.
An analysis by Defense Priorities, a US-based research institute, also describes the China-Russia relationship as a “quasi-alliance”. In its view, the relationship has features of a military partnership but has not reached the level of a full military alliance.
All in all, the China-Russia relationship is taking the shape of a strategic coordination that links military exercises, training, technology, intelligence, energy and economic transactions. With Iran and North Korea’s cooperation added, Western security analysts’ concern is growing.
But it would not yet be accurate to present this coordination as a formal military alliance. Rather, an informal sphere of strategic cooperation is forming under the leadership of China and Russia, whose impact could be felt not only in the war in Ukraine but in the global security order, including the Asia-Pacific.
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