Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff writer and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.

Scholars have urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to abandon Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Xi has yet to do so. (Nikkei montage/Reuters)
But if China's economy suffers from bond with Moscow, a power struggle awaits