Opposed to economic sanctions against Russia, Beijing has neither the means nor, perhaps, the will to allow Moscow to circumvent them completely, but at least it can attenuate them. The Middle Kingdom is not the first economic partner of Moscow, it weighs for 15% of its exports and 20% of its imports.
It is the European Union (EU) which holds this title with 37% of Russia’s trade in 2020. Despite the sanctions put in place by the EU against the country of Vladimir Putin after the invasion of Crimea , in 2014, Russia’s trade with the Old Continent (including Great Britain) was, before the Covid-19 crisis, two to three times greater than that with China.
Despite everything, the flagship products that Russia exports are precisely those of which the country of Xi Jinping is fond: hydrocarbons and cereals. On the first day of the war, Thursday February 24, Chinese customs coincidentally announced that they were lifting the restrictions on imports of Russian wheat put in place until then for phytosanitary reasons. A decision that Beijing has, according to experts, mainly taken to meet its own needs. But which obviously has considerable symbolic significance.
A new gas pipeline
This decision is part of the agreements signed on February 4 in Beijing during the meeting between the Chinese and Russian presidents, during which Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin announced that international relations would enter “into a new era”. Their friendship now ” limitless “, according to the press release, also finds its source in hydrocarbons.
Since 2019, a Sila Sibiri (or Power of Siberia, “Siberian force”) gas pipeline has linked Russia to China. Its construction was also decided in 2014 shortly after the invasion of Crimea. Through this pipeline and LNG gas deliveries, Moscow supplied 16.5 billion cubic meters of gas to China in 2021. A previous contract provided for the delivery of 38 billion cubic meters per year by 2025. On February 4, the two countries announced the purchase by China of an additional 10 billion cubic meters per year for twenty-five to thirty years thanks to a new pipeline, Sila Sibiri 2, which would come into operation from 2030.
Unlike the current pipeline, Sila Sibiri 2 would start from the western part of Russia and pass through Mongolia. In addition, Rosneft has signed a long-term agreement with China’s CNPC for the delivery of 100 million tonnes of crude oil over ten years, or 10 million tonnes per year.
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