Russia’s trade with China has declined this year as Ukraine’s war leaves Moscow and isolates.
But Russian sources told Reuters that President Vladimir Putin will try to reverse the trend when he meets President Xi Jinping at a summit next week.
when Western companies sever ties with Russia Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, China came to rescue, buy Russian oil and sell goods from cars to electronics The highest amount of bilateral trade is $245 billion In 2024.
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Trade turnover fell by 8.1% from January 2025 to July 2025, according to the trend of imports from automobiles to Russia, as oil exports to China decreased.
Summit in Tianjin on Sunday
Sources said that while the numbers partially reflect natural corrections, the slideshow attracted Moscow’s attention ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, the northern port city of Shanghai, on Sunday and Monday.
“Before the visit, officials from both sides were looking at ways to increase trade because the current numbers don’t look good,” said a person involved in Putin’s travel preparations, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Agriculture and energy may be areas of expansion, a source said.
Putin will be one of more than 20 world leaders, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to attend the forum, another diplomatic coup from Putin after his visit to Alaska earlier this month.
China is Russia’s largest trading partner, Moscow is keenly aware of its reliance on Beijing’s economy and military, according to a Reuters conversation with sources close to the Russian government.
Important support for Russia’s military and economic
Strong trade volumes help Russia maintain a unified front with China and promote a common worldview between Putin and XI, which portrays the West as decline as China challenges the supremacy of the United States in many regions.
Xi Jinping and Putin signed an “unrestricted” strategic partnership in February 2022, just weeks before Putin sent troops into Ukraine.
When Xi Jinping visited the Kremlin in May, their two countries should be “Friends of Steel”, and they promised to take cooperation to the next level to deal with the U.S. influence.
But with China’s economy about nine times more economic than Russia, there is no doubt that Moscow officials acknowledge who is the main player in the relationship.
China accounts for the majority of Russia’s export revenue, he said, approaching the fourth source of the Russian government, the technology provided by Beijing is crucial to the Russian military.
“Without them we wouldn’t be able to make a missile, let alone drones, the entire economy would collapse long ago,” the man said. “If they wanted, the war would be long ago.”
However, despite the friendly rhetoric, another source close to the government said that Russia’s largest trading partners, China and India, are primarily in their own interests, and Moscow has no real allies.
“China is not behaves like an allies,” the source said. “Sometimes it disappoints us and stops payments, sometimes taking advantage, sometimes being a complete robbery, and there is no combination of that.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that cooperation between the two countries has achieved fruitful results.
“The overall basis of cooperation between the two sides remains solid, and in the long run, the fundamental trend of stable progress has not changed and will be maintained.” “China is full of confidence in the prospects of China’s cooperation.”
Fuel exports and imports plummeted
China Customs data shows that while trade titles fell to 8.1% from January to July, sales in some departments were even bigger, China’s customs data showed.
During that period, Russia’s fuel exports reached nearly 20%, smartphone and computer imports fell 27.5%, and imported vehicles from China, including passenger cars, tractors and commercial trucks, down 46% to $5.8 billion.
These were offset by the surge in low-value imports, requiring simpler customs procedures and a significant jump in Russian aluminum, copper and nickel exports.
Agriculture and energy projects, such as the power of the Siberia-2 pipeline, may be the way to promote trade, one of the sources said.
However, for years, Moscow and Beijing have been unable to agree to the terms of the pipeline, and Russia’s efforts to launch exports to China are its main agricultural commodity, with no results so far.
Russia’s Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov blamed bilateral trade last week for sanctions and volatility in commodity markets.
“We also see the gradual saturation of Chinese products,” he said at a business forum in Kazan.
That Saturation is most obvious in the automotive marketAmong them, Chinese automakers had less than 10% of the market share in pre-war Russia, and by mid-2023, the market accounted for more than half of the market.
Russian automaker Avtovaz and truck maker Kamaz blamed excessive imports of cars and machinery when high interest rates were squeezing demand and sales slowed.
“Everyone has a short-term plan scope,” one of the sources said. “The need to fill the market means getting people to buy Chinese cars when… we could have waited a year and a half and built something from within.”
According to the mechanical rhythm of industry publishing, Russia achieved this goal with the support of the government as part of the machine tool sector, with domestically produced machine tools increasing by 137% in the three years to 2024.
Sources involved in Russia-China trade say demand for imports from China will further decline as Russian defense companies successfully “re-move”.
- Jim Pollard’s additional editor Reuters
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