Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Moscow this week for the Russian victory day parade, where his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, unleashes a military demonstration to help cement links with Beijing.
The parade, a celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet triumph against Nazi Germany during the Second World War, aims to highlight the resilience and the ambition of Russia on the world scene.
In Kremlin, Xi said that China was on the shoulder with Moscow against “hegemonic intimidation”, a sharp blow on the prices of American president Donald Trump and paralyzing sanctions against Russia on his invasion of Ukraine.
“Mutual trust between China and Russia is increasingly increasing, pragmatic cooperation for an unbreakable link,” said Xi.
Björn Alexander Düben, an expert in China relations in Russia, thinks that Xi’s visit has a “highly symbolic element”, noting that outside the president of Brazil, Lula Da Silva, XI was the only big world leader to attend the parade.
Düben, professor In international relations at Forward College Berlinnoted a “personal relationship” between the two leaders and described how XI “devotes more time to its interaction with Putin than practically any other international leader”.
Russia more than ever needs China
While Western sanctions are stifling the economy of Russia during the Ukraine war, Moscow has more and more on Beijing as a rescue buoy for energy and raw materials exports.
China increased to become the best economic partner in Russia, bilateral trade reaching 244 billion dollars (216 billion euros) last year. In February 2022, the two countries signed an economic, military and diplomatic partnership “without limits” to counter Western influence.
Since the start of the war, Russia exports to China have soaked 63% to 129.3 billion dollars, while Chinese imports have helped strengthen Moscow’s economy, linking the two nations closer than ever.
Instead of buckling under the tension of the conflict, the Sino-Russian links have reached new heights. While maintaining neutrality in the war, Beijing has concluded a clever agreement with the Kremlin, taking Russian prices and Russian gas, while the European nations reduced their dependence. Russia is now the main Chinese source of raw oil imports, providing approximately a fifth of imports.
The two powers have also tightened military obligations, increased joint war games and sharing advanced defense technologies.
While the economy of Russia has proven to be more resilient to Western sanctions than most of the experts had provided it, without the economic support of China, Moscow would be in a “deep disorder”, Düben said to DW.
China’s support supports war efforts
In addition to the extended energy trade, China has given Russia access to Manufactured products and technologies, both for defense and civil use, which they cannot produce and that Western states are no longer exported to Russia.
“Russia is still a highly isolated actor in the international arena and needs China to be able to maintain its war efforts against Ukraine”. ALICJA BACHULSKA, member of the Policies of the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR), told DW.
Bachulska wrote on “strategic confidence” Between China and Russia which, according to her, was “much stronger” than between Putin and Trump, whose team is currently negotiating the end of the Ukraine War.
One of Trump’s goals with such high prices on Chinese imports was to box Beijing in a corner against Washington and the rest of the world. Without being discouraged, China retaliated, warning the nations which rushed to ink trade with the United States against Chinese interests. In his relations with Washington, Beijing remained provocative but calculated.
(By responding to Trump) “China is positioning itself as a constant counterweight to an erratic and protectionist US, presenting its alliance with Moscow as a foundation of global stability,” said Düben.
US secondary sanctions are hampering trade
With the American prices on China hovering with unprecedented highs and American markets that have closed Chinese exporters, they can seek to explore new opportunities on the Russian market, although much smaller than in the United States.
But they will have to overcome the American secondary sanctions imposed in Moscow to stop entities in third countries exporting to Russia, which has made many Chinese banks hesitate to work with their Russian counterparts.
“TSecondary sanctions have proven to be a major irritant in the Sino-Russian economic interaction and a substantial obstacle in the additional expansion of trade, “said Düben. “But since trade relations with the United States are becoming less attractive to China, Chinese banks and other companies may be more inclined to ignore threats of American sanctions in their relations with Russian companies.”
Earlier this year, secondary sanctions briefly disrupted Russia’s oil exports to China, when the US Treasury targeted 183 ships, two of the main oil producers in Russia and companies related to sanctions. The repression caused a drop of 18% of raw exports from Russia to China in February. However, thanks to a Chinese bypassing solution involving alternative ships and payment systems, the shadow fleet of Russia has since supported the trade.
While Düben notes that although the emphasis on Russia can further increase the Sino-Russian trade, it expects growth “to remain modest” compared to the broader world trade in China.
Siberia 2 pipeline at the “active stadium”
A centerpiece of Putin-Xe talks during the visit of the Chinese president is the proposed power of the Siberia 2 gas pipeline, planned to channel 50 billion cubic meters of Russian gas each year of Yamal in northwestern Siberia in China via Mongolia.
Moscow continued Beijing tirelessly for years to finalize the project, but the pipeline route remains unresolved by stressing the top of China. Russian Minister of Energy, Sergey Tsivovantov, revealed Thursday that negotiations are at an “active stadium”, although an agreement is unlikely to be sealed during XI’s visit.
ECFR Bachulska thinks the project The momentum was lost, noting how “”China diversifies its energy sources and does not want to bet too much on a single horse in the energy field. “”
This unbalanced dynamic throws the decreasing lever effect of Russia in a partnership led by Beijing, cementing the domination of China while Moscow aligns its global ambitions.
“Given the unprecedented dependence of Russia with regard to China, Moscow is increasingly linked to the interests of Beijing … and is now more and more begging”, ” Düben said.
Published by: Rob Mudge
