At its founding, the People's Republic of China already maintained extremely close ties with the Soviet Union: the Soviet Union not only became the first country to recognise the People's Republic of China, but also signed the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance between China and the Soviet Union in 1950, providing mutual military and economic assistance. Using Soviet trade and aid, China successfully built its early military and industrial foundations. Although relations between the two countries deteriorated rapidly in the 1960s, allowing the United States to intervene and establish diplomatic relations with China in 1979, Sino-Russian relations have continued to escalate since the Soviet collapse. The countries not only established a "strategic partnership" in 1996, but ultimately signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation between China and Russia in 2001, which became the cornerstone of contemporary Sino-Russian relations and jointly founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
In 2011, the "strategic partnership" was upgraded to a "comprehensive strategic partnership", and in 2019 it was upgraded again to a "new era comprehensive strategic partnership". After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, China and Russia issued the Joint Statement on Deepening the New Era Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, stating that bilateral relations are "comprehensive and strategic" and have reached their "highest point in history".
