The standoff, after the G20 meeting in Bali, showed how bound the leader of China, Xi Jinping, is to the battlefield fortunes of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and how unlikely he is to help the United States secure an end to the Ukraine conflict. It also underscored the deep chasms in a relationship that is getting worse, as the Biden administration tries to come up with a cohesive China policy.

“For Chinese strategists, if the war ends with Russia being severely defeated, China would face a far worse geostrategic environment than today,” said Zhao Tong, a research scholar at Princeton University’s Science and Global Security Program.

Despite being rich and powerful, China fears being isolated without a viable Russia at its side, left to fend for itself against what Beijing sees as the “strategic aggression of the U.S.-led West,” he said.

The worst outcome for Beijing, he added, is a defeated Russia and a pro-Western government in Moscow.