Wang Yi got his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say Putin got his meeting with Wang.

I can’t emphasize this enough: China’s “no-limits” strategic partnership with Russia isn’t no-limits, and it’s not a “partnership” either. To the extent it is a partnership, it isn’t one of equals.

The tendency for media outlets to include Putin’s Russia in tales of “great power” struggles overlooks the fact that if you strip away the nukes and the energy, Russia is a hapless frontier market — a sad remnant, and a reminder of a failed experiment in central planning.

Of course, when it comes to wielding power, you could do a lot worse than a giant stockpile of armageddon weapons and an ocean of fossil fuels. I’m not trying to trivialize the risk that Putin brings on the apocalypse or downplay his (demonstrated) capacity to trigger an existential energy crisis in Europe.

The point, rather, is that Russia is a tiny economy. China’s is ten times larger, and although Xi’s pretensions to yuan internationalization are still a pipe dream, the renminbi is a reserve currency. The ruble, by contrast, is just a promissory note backed by commodities which are now contraband. It may as well be scrip issued by a Mexican drug cartel. (“This note is redeemable for a quarter kilo of mostly pure cocaine. Issuer is not responsible for losses, monetary or otherwise, incurred during delivery.”)

After meeting with Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday, Wang consulted with Putin in a conversation which, notably, didn’t take place at the kind of 40-foot-long tables Putin has favored during the pandemic and the war. That’s not a joke — if Putin doesn’t make you sit so far away from him that you have to shout to be heard, there’s a lot of trust between the two of you. And he (understandably) doesn’t trust many people in the 2020s.

Putin referred to Xi as “my friend” while speaking to Wang, and said the China-Russia nexus is “very important” when it comes to “stabilizing the international situation.”

Putin’s contention that the Kremlin is a “stabilizing” force was consistent with his rhetoric from Tuesday’s state-of-the-nation address (during which he suggested Russia demonstrated its commitment to preventing a war in Ukraine by starting one), and wholly inconsistent with what most of humanity perceives as reality.

Note that although my cadence is dripping with sarcastic humor, I’m the first to admit that the world is anything but black and white. I don’t traffic in normative statements. And when it comes to critiquing US foreign policy failures, I can carry on with the best (and worst) of them.

However, the facts are inescapable. Putin is the aggressor in this situation. He’s engaged in a war of conquest. His army has doubtlessly committed war crimes on any definition of the term. And at times (not all the time, but certainly sometimes) he sounds more delusional than homicidal. When it comes to people armed with nuclear weapons, it’s not clear which is worse.

In response to Putin, Wang reiterated the strength of the China-Russia relationship, only on Wednesday, perhaps to acknowledge he was speaking to the big man himself, he said “solid as a mountain” instead of the “solid as rock” description he employed with Lavrov.

Wang also agreed that the geopolitical situation is “indeed critical and complex.”

Moscow was eager to publicize the meeting, which scarcely needed additional fanfare. Within what appeared to be minutes, the Kremlin’s website featured a photo gallery of the meeting. (To be fair, the Kremlin is always quick to publish photos and accounts of Putin’s bilaterals.)

There was a transcript too. “Dear Mr. Wang, Dear friends! Colleagues!” Putin exclaimed. “We are very glad to see you in Moscow. I would like to take this opportunity, at the beginning, to convey my best wishes to our friend, Comrade Xi.”

Related: ‘No Limits‘