The country’s trade with Russia this year has exceeded $200 billion, and makers of cars and trucks are the big winners.
On China’s snowy border with Russia, a dealership that sells trucks has seen its sales double in the past year thanks to Russian customers. China’s exports to its neighbor are so strong that Chinese construction workers built warehouses and 20-story office towers at the border this summer.
The border town Heihe is a microcosm of China’s ever closer economic relationship with Russia. China is profiting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has led Russia to switch from the West to China for purchases of everything from cars to computer chips.
Russia, in turn, has sold oil and natural gas to China at deep discounts. Russian chocolates, sausages and other consumer goods have become plentiful in Chinese supermarkets. Trade between Russia and China surpassed $200 billion in the first 11 months of this year, a level the countries had not expected to reach until 2024.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has also gotten an image boost from China. State media disseminates a steady diet of Russian propaganda in China and around the world. Russia is so popular in China that social media influencers flock to Harbin, the capital of China’s northernmost province in the east, Heilongjiang, to pose in Russian garb in front of a former Russian cathedral there.
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In October 2023, the increase in China’s year-by-year exports to Russia was explained primarily by an increase in product exports in Computers ($226M or 108%), Telephones ($220M or 50.3%), and Cars ($134M or 142%). In October 2023, the increase in China’s year-by-year imports from Russia was explained primarily by an increase in product imports in Crude Petroleum ($1.74B or 69.8%), Coal Briquettes ($444M or 193%), and Refined Copper ($279M or 191%).
In October 2023, the increase in China’s year-by-year exports to Ukraine was explained primarily by an increase in product exports in Computers ($29M or 198%), Pesticides ($25M or 59.2%), and Electric Generating Sets ($21.6M or 2.86k%). In October 2023, the decrease in China’s year-by-year imports from Ukraine was explained primarily by an decrease in product imports in Barley ($-52.5M or -73.7%), Iron Ore ($-23.6M or -7.64%), and Other Vegetable Residues ($-15.7M or -15.5%).
China’s making a killing selling computers to both sides. Unfortunately, China’s primary export to Ukraine (telecommunications equipment) is no longer viable if Ukraine wants to receive Western funding and China’s primary imports from Ukraine (agricultural products, iron ore) aren’t exactly easy to export during wartime.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, and Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, have made numerous public demonstrations of the nations’ close ties.
“Maintaining and developing China-Russian relations well is a strategic choice made by both sides on the basis of the fundamental interests of the two peoples,” Mr. Xi said as he met in Beijing on Wednesday with the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin.
German manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz and BMW used to be strong sellers in Russia, but they have pulled out in response to sanctions on the country by Europe, the United States and their allies.
But lower-middle-class and poor Russian families, whose members make up the bulk of the soldiers fighting the war, have stepped up purchases of affordable Chinese cars, according to Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
“Never before have we seen automakers from a single country gobble up so much market share so quickly — the Chinese came into a windfall,” said Michael Dunne, an Asia automotive consultant in San Diego.
But some laborers are finding work on the 2,600-mile Russian border, which until this year had a dearth of truck stops, customs processing centers, rail yards, pipelines and other infrastructure.
The original article contains 1,171 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 83%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is not going to last. Russian economy is about to flip the fuck out though China got their cut already.
Will be interesting how China’s opinions change once dirty money dries up but my guess is that they’ll forever pretend to be fence sitters as long as Han China is doing well.
One interesting note on how down China was with new Russian market is that they started to print Russian text on national brand products like Huawei last year and I just a new pair of huawei ear phones that no longer have it. It’s probably just a coincidence but it’s kinda funny nevertheless.
“Russian economy is about to flip the fuck out”
Just curious, what’s your sourcing on that? I ask because this has been said since the sanctions were put in place but they’ve managed to limb along.
It is strange, also according to the IMF forecasts GDP growth this and next year.
It’s looking like no one really knows - seeing mixed signals in the recent reporting. They are reporting higher GDP but the concern seems to be projected inflation increases and a possible housing bubble.
When diving into the reporting, I found some interesting nuggets referring to Putin directing his interior ministers toward manual economic controls since 2014. The thought is in mitigating crises (Crimea and now Ukraine). From looking at China, manual controls seem to work in the short term before mistakes set in long term. Curious to see how much longer Russia can hold out.
It’s running way to fucking hot to be sustainable. You usually see it like this before hyperinflation sets in and people start eating grass.
The thing about modern economies is that it’s been pretty extensively proven by now that you can run on a war deficit for basically forever as long as you have a couple strong trade partners.
Yeah I did a bit of looking around recent headlines and see similar sentiments:
- https://www.ft.com/content/b3206a9f-e667-4e53-8a16-a8096188d4ae
- https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/russias-economy-will-suffer-brawl-top-2023-12-18/
I guess we’ll see if they can dodge another bullet
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It’s not up to date but…
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It’s not a democratic country. Shit takes time to change. Have you seen the questions that slipped through the latest putin talk? The peasants are angry eggs are expensive nor because their country is murdering and raping kids.
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Nah man hiding issues is much easier when there’s no real accountability.
It’s true that it’s hard to predict the future but real Russian experiences are not really hard to find. Shit is pretty bad already and that’s with hacking and hiding the system. If you think a country can prosper without global trade then I have a bridge to sell you.
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I mean it’s really bad. Some places have 200% inflation. My point is that you don’t see collapse and btw communication is extremely important in economic reaction. If you stump the communication and transparency channels it just means the swings are less common but bigger. Thats why successful democratic countries value transparency and market reaction - to prevent huge swings and overcorrections that break shit.
I see people with zero economic background commenting and down voting in this thread just because they don’t see “Russia collapses” in big letters on TV 🫣
… only so long as they can keep their transportation infrastructure up…
SHAMAN company is working on that problem right now.
eyup. putin is pretty much building up china at a cost to russia. Its funny because hes always trying to build up stooges in other countries but all the while hes the chinese stooge. Seriously he has reduced himself and his country down to the level of the kims and north korea.
