Entangled Empires

Four Centuries of China - Russia Relations

By: Soren Urbansky, Martin Wagner, Catriona Corke (Translator)

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Hardcover | 26 September 2026 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
296 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.11 x 16.0 x 3.05

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As expansionist empires, socialist superpowers and authoritarian regimes, China and Russia have much in common. While many in the West fear the formation of an authoritarian alliance between these two great powers, and while Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping call themselves 'good friends', the geopolitical interests of Beijing and Moscow are often at odds with each other. They may be comrades, but they don't always march to the same beat.

In order to gain a clear understanding of China–Russia relations in the twenty-first century, we need first to understand the long history that brought them to this point. In Entangled Empires, Sören Urbansky and Martin Wagner offer an introduction to the 400-year history of these two distant neighbours: from their first official contact in 1618 and the falling out of the two communist regimes under Khrushchev and Mao, through to China's response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

This expertly researched history of the relationship between these two nations will be essential reading for all students and scholars of Chinese and Russian history and politics, and for anyone interested in the changing balance of power in the world today.

About the Author

Soren Urbansky is Professor of East European History at Ruhr University Bochum.

Martin Wagner is Lecturer in East European History at Kiel University and Research Associate at the Free University of Berlin.

Industry Reviews

"No one can know how relations between Russia and China will develop in the future. But how changeable and full of surprising twists and turns they have been in the nearly half a millennium since their first encounter, and how they could be again at any time, can be learned from the twelve chapters of this excellently researched and densely written history."
Karl Schlogel

"Urbansky and Wagner have managed to pull off a remarkable balancing act: their book is source-based, well-researched, and analytically precise – and at the same time written with a narrative lightness that makes it accessible to a broad readership. It shows how history can sharpen our understanding of the present without determining it - and invites us to take a sharper look at the global order of the future."
Suddeutsche Zeitung

"[Urbansky and Wagner] have not only succeeded in shedding light on a complicated relationship, but also in characterising two countries that appear to function very differently from Western Europe or America."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"Soren Urbansky and Martin Wagner have produced a truly outstanding book at just the right time."
Portal fur Politikwissenschaft

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