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The long-running consensus in the West and elsewhere has been that China and Russia are destined to clash. According to this narrative, while America’s post-Cold War primacy pushed the two sides together, geography and China’s growing power ensure Beijing and Moscow will be strategic competitors over the long-term.

There’s certainly something to this argument; at the very least these factors ensure mistrust will be a permanent feature of the bilateral relationship. That being said, this ignores the potential areas of cooperation between Russia and China, and fails to tell us how temporary the Sino-Russian relationship truly is.

If President Xi Jinping’s trip to Russia is any indication, the relationship has greater staying power than analysts...