China’s customs agency on Monday released data that showed trade between China and Russia slipped by 9.1 percent to $106.48 billion in the first half of 2025.
The decline in trade between the two authoritarian powers appears to be accelerating, which is bad news for Russia since China has become its most indispensable economic ally following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Trade between Russia and China grew quickly in 2022 and 2023, as many of Russia’s other trading partners imposed sanctions after the Ukraine invasion in February 2022.
Bilateral trade grew by 26 percent in 2023, reaching a record high of $237 billion at the beginning of 2024 — but that growth slowed to a trickle in 2024, down to just 1.9 percent, and now trade between Russia and China is in outright decline.
Russia’s exports to China largely stopped growing last year while Russian demand for Chinese goods plummeted as the Russian economy stalled out last year, especially regarding big-ticket items like automobiles and household appliances.
China was eager to sell cars to Russian buyers, creating an income stream for the Chinese auto industry that would lie outside of American and European anti-dumping tariffs and trade restrictions, but Russia imposed heavy new taxes on imported cars, effectively forcing foreign automakers to subsidize Russia’s struggling domestic auto industry. Combined with the devaluation of the ruble, this left Russian consumers unable to afford Chinese cars and electric vehicles (EVs).
Chinese export growth to Russia also slipped because the U.S. warned Chinese finance companies they would face consequences for evading sanctions against Russia.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had nothing but praise for the “stable, mature, and strategically valuable” ties between China and Russia when he met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Beijing on Sunday.
Wang said the two nations shared a desire to “deepen comprehensive strategic cooperation, promote each side’s development and revitalization, and jointly respond to the challenges of a turbulent and changing world.”
Ukraine’s Ukrinform news service noted that while Wang and Lavrov met with each other for two consecutive days, they gave no public indication that the Ukraine war was a topic of discussion. Instead, they viewed the “Ukrainian crisis” as a concern on par with “the situation on the Korean Peninsula” and “the Iranian nuclear issue.”
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