It could have been the ominous cold open to a classic Bond film.

The Russian and Chinese leaders caught on a hot mic at a Beijing military parade, casually musing about cheating death.

“With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality,” Russian leader Vladimir Putin told Chinese ruler Xi Jinping, his tone half clinical, half conspiratorial.

“Predictions are that this century, there is a chance of living to 150,” Xi replied.

But this wasn’t a scriptwriter’s villainous fantasy. It was a jaw-droppingly real exchange between two of the world’s most powerful, heavily armed leaders.

While it may have sounded absurd, behind palace walls, the obsession with longevity is more than idle chatter.

In 2024, the Kremlin ordered scientists to fast-track anti-aging research on cellular degeneration, cognitive decline and the immune system. Meanwhile, China has also been pouring resources into exploring nanotechnology-delivered hydrogen therapy and compounds such as betaine and lithocholic acid, hoping to slow down aging and extend healthy lifespans.

But even as the world’s autocrats fantasize about replacing body parts like car tires, the science remains far less accommodating.

James Markmann, executive council president at the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, called Xi and Putin’s idea of living to 150 through transplants “unfounded.”

“There is currently no evidence suggesting that living to 150 years of age is possible through organ transplantation,” Markmann said. “While there is much interest in related research and some progress in intervening in the aging process, there is no evidence that a 150-year lifespan can currently be achieved.”

While organ transplantation can and does save lives, there’s no data that it can also slow or reset an individual’s biological clock, Markmann said. Replacing a single organ, or even several, may improve health temporarily, but it cannot halt the overall aging process of the body.

“The concerning idea here is that there is a surplus of organs available that can consistently be replenished for a single individual to prolong their life; this is simply not the case,” Markmann said.

The oldest obsession

The Xi-Putin exchange didn’t happen in a vacuum. History is littered with rulers who believed they could outsmart death.

Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, swallowed mercury pills in pursuit of eternal life, a habit that eventually killed him. Egyptian pharaohs mummified themselves for eternity, Cleopatra dabbled in youth potions and medieval alchemists peddled elixirs. By the 20th century, Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II, and Empress Alexandra were consulting Rasputin and other mystics for advice on health and longevity.

Today, the same quest has migrated to Silicon Valley, where the mega-rich pour fortunes into cryonics, anti-aging biotech and “biohacking” in the hope of buying more time.

According to Elizabeth Wishnick, an expert on Sino-Russian relations and senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a non-partisan research and analysis organization, this fixation is typical of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful.

“They want to go into outer space, they want to go underwater … the human body for them is just another frontier,” she told POLITICO. “It’s logical for people who don’t feel limits to try to extend those boundaries.”

But there’s a stark contrast close to home. Life expectancy in Russia remains just over 73 years, while in China, it hovers around 79 years, with access to healthcare being deeply unequal.

In Wishnick’s view, Xi and Putin “would do better to focus on that, but instead their focus seems to be on their own longevity, not the health of their societies.”

Unfinished business

There’s also a significant cultural dimension agitating Xi and Putin.

Robert Jay Lifton, the American scholar who coined the term “symbolic immortality,” argued that humans invent religions, nations and political legacies as ways of cheating death. Xi’s mantra of “national rejuvenation” and Putin’s mission to restore a “great Russia” fit neatly into that framework — even if they can’t physically live forever.

“Both of them are really hostage to their own propaganda,” said Wishnick. “They truly believe they are the only leaders who can do the job. They’re concerned about their legacy and how they’ll be remembered in history.”

That, she said, helps explain their obsession with reclaiming “lost” territories — Taiwan for Beijing; Ukraine for Moscow — as if completing unfinished maps might also complete their historical destinies.

They’ve made creeping moves toward that goal domestically. Xi has upended China’s tradition of leadership turnover to maintain his dominance, while Putin has dismantled elections and eliminated rivals until only he remains. “It’s not surprising they would look to science as a way of extending that,” Wishnick added.

While the scientific limitations persist, immortality will — at least for the time being — remain tied to public consciousness and memory. See, for example, Qin Shi Huang’s Terracotta Army, which still stands, or Russia’s expansionist czar, Peter the Great, an 18th-century leader who inspires Putin even today.

But even in a world of nanotech and organ swaps, immortality has a catch: you still have to live with yourself. And for the world’s Bond villains, that might be the cruelest sentence of all.