An excerpt from a BBC article, How is China supporting Russia...:
In an interview with BBC News, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: "What's not happening is the provision of actual arms by China to Russia for use in Ukraine."
However, China has been accused of building up Moscow's war machine by providing critical components.
Mr Blinken said: "Those are being used to help Russia on what's an extraordinary crash course effort to make more munitions, tanks, armoured vehicles, missiles."
About 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the microelectronics Russia imports come from China, he added.
Sanctions are working to some degree, but they are being partially bypassed... Bill Brouder's May/2024 testimony to the UK House of Commons Treasury Committee was excellent. He covers a lot of ground about the sanctions, how well they are working and where some loopholes are, and solutions.
The most obvious thing about that article is the picture of the two leaders. Putin is walking behind, skinny, head down, and short. Xi is walking in front, head up, tall and fat.
There is also a clear trade imbalance:
"Russian imports from China were $111bn and its exports to China $129bn, the figures show." <-That $18 Billion difference is probably the difference in the value of provided goods, with it otherwise being an equivalent exchange.
"As of 2023, China has become Russia's top trade partner, while Russia is China's sixth-largest trade partner." <-Clearly, Russia is just not trading that much in value.
Exporting more in money terms than you import is generally considered a good thing... the alternative would be selling off forex assets, if any, followed by racking up external debt.
As for Russia being China's sixth-largest trading partner while China is Russia's largest, yes, that's what you'd expect when China is
not sanctioned by the rest of the world and can thus act as an intermediary for Russia as well as doing its own business. China's larger trading partners are the US, which is deeply in a current account deficit with it (and certainly doesn't trade much with Russia, who we hate); Japan and South Korea, which understandably don't trade much with Russia either; Hong Kong, which hardly even counts since it is part of China; and, hilariously, Taiwan.
If we consider only China's imports, which is really more important from the perspective of what they "need", Taiwan jumps to the top, followed by the US, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and Russia. They're all more or less in the same order of magnitude, $129 billion from Russia to $199 billion from Taiwan.
But more importantly, Russia is China's largest crude oil supplier, the source of almost a fifth of their crude oil, while, for example, the US only provides a little over four percent. So the question of value has to be considered in terms of - if China suffers an economic contraction, who will it keep trading with? Certainly it will continue to need fossil fuels, without question, and the agricultural products it gets from other BRICS countries and the US (although they have been weaning off the US to some extent). It's manufactured goods, like it gets from South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, which are more likely to be cut back in a crisis, while the economy focuses on keeping the lights on. Given China's enormous need for energy, and continued failed attempts to achieve energy independence, (and especially in the light of production declines in other major energy suppliers, most importantly Saudi Arabia!) it's really impossible to argue credibly that China doesn't need Russia a lot more than Russia needs China.
I get that you're motivated by a desire to see Russia lose,
believe me, but that doesn't justify being unrealistic... things are indeed pretty bad.
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Topic: Emotional Responses to War in Ukraine - Trollbait 2.0 (Read 108641 times)