As the comprehensive strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation has been continuously growing, investments by Russian companies in China have become a key pillar of bilateral trade and economic cooperation. However, systemic differences between the two countries’ legal systems, law enforcement practices, and business cultures constitute a primary source of compliance risks for Russian enterprises operating in China. This article identifies a range of such risks, including those related to corruption-related offences and crimes, compliance with intellectual property, labour, data protection (including personal data), antitrust, and corporate legislation. It further examines typical risk scenarios faced by Russian companies, particularly those arising from attempts to “transpose legal consciousness” into the Chinese legal and business environment. A distinctive feature of compliance risks in China lies in its highly developed multi-tier system of statutory law, coupled with an extensive model of administrative oversight. The article describes a mechanism for preventing these risks based on Chinese legislation and the international compliance standard ISO37301, and presents examples of anti-corruption and labor disputes involving foreign companies that have been heard in Chinese people's (state) courts. Not only does the study provide Russian companies with a practical “roadmap” for moving from theory to practice but also opens a new empirical perspective for research into the coordination of cross-border investment regulation between China and Russia.