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.

Sören 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.