Since 1996, China and Russia have been united in what both so-called a “strategic partnership.” Although the relationship is currently strong, the future is quite uncertain, since the relationship was never as solid as it seemed, nor as dangerous. However, some other scholars deeply doubt the strategic nature of the China–Russia partnership and maintain a gloomy view regarding the future of this bilateral relationship. Never-theless, based on the limitation to conclude that the Sino–Russian strategic partnership is purely tactical, impulsive and baseless will prove to be more dangerous. In a roughly chronological way, this paper will study four parts: (1) provide a historical overview of China's bilateral relations with Russia (from 1949 to present); (2) discuss the major for-eign and domestic elements of China's current bilateral relations with Russia; (3) offer some case-study of incidents to illustrate these elements; and (4) indicate the likely tra-jectories of China's future bilateral relations with Russia and what kind of foreign de-velopment pattern is likely to be on their relations.
