The government of Russia announced on Wednesday that it would send its energy minister, Sergey Tsivilyov, to Beijing to meet with several high-ranking Chinese officials and heads of Chinese energy companies, a sign Moscow is concerned of losing business in the face of a threat to impose secondary tariffs by the White House.
Tsivilyov did not mention President Donald Trump’s declaration on Monday that, should Russia not end its invasion of Ukraine in 50 days, he would impose a 100-percent tariff on nations that do business with Russia when discussing his departure for China. China is one of the most lucrative markets in the world for Russian oil and natural gas, however, and any reduction in Chinese purchases could have an outsized effect on the Russian economy.
“I will fly to China, to Beijing today. We will have the Russia-China business forum tomorrow,” the energy minister said, according to the Russian news agency Tass. “I will directly participate in it and meet my counterpart – the head of the National Energy Administration of China.”
“Major Chinese companies of the fuel and energy sector maintain active communications with our companies, with the ministry of energy,” he explained. “The number of proposal [sic] was received to visit these companies, to look at how they work, what achievements they have, and I will definitely take advantage of that.”
The potential secondary American tariff could cause some of Russia’s largest consumers to seek other markets, including a competitor such as the United States. While unlikely for China, it may force the Communist Party, in the face of an increasingly stagnant and concerning economic outlook, to consume less energy.
Trade between China and Russia already declined a marked 9.1 percent in the first half of 2025 – most of it representing the beginning of President Trump’s second term in office, in contrast to the skyrocketing growth documented in the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russian strongman Vladimir Putin announced in February 2022 that he would deploy the Russian military to oust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and conquer a sizable chunk of Ukrainian territory, declaring Zelensky a “Nazi.” Both the United States and the European Union imposed significant sanctions on Russia for the invasion, making the Russian economy more reliable on countries outside of Western influence such as China, India, and Turkey. The European Union remains a major consumer of Russia natural gas, however, undermining its attempts to defund the Russian war effort.
President Trump has made ending the Russian invasion and bringing peace to Ukraine a priority, pressuring Ukraine for months to agree to talks with Moscow. Zelensky agreed to direct talks with Russia in May, traveling to host city Istanbul for the occasion, but Putin refused to attend and has reportedly derailed attempts at good-faith peace negotiations. President Trump expressed exasperation with Putin during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Monday, announcing the threat of tariffs on Russian trade partners.
“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs,” Trump told reporters, “doing secondary tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days. It’s very simple, and they’ll be at 100 per cent, and that’s the way it is, couldn’t be more simple. I hope we don’t have to do it.”
The president added that he would also facilitate the transfer of American weapons to Ukraine, paid for by European countries. Trump stated the moves were necessary because Putin had not been forthcoming in negotiations.
“I speak to [Putin a lot]… I always hang up and say ‘well that was a nice phone call’ and then missiles are launched into Kyiv,” Trump stated, “I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘you know, I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation’. And then she says ‘oh really? Another city was just hit.’”
Rutte warned China, and Russia partners Brazil and India, on Wednesday that they may face significant economic consequences if they do not succeed in convincing Putin to stop his invasion.
“My encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard,” Rutte asserted. “So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise this will slam back on Brazil, on India and on China in a massive way.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry repeatedly condemned the threat of secondary tariffs on Tuesday and Wednesday but has not explicitly stated that it would continue to purchase Russian fossil fuels if it ultimately needs to pay double for the same goods.
“China always believes that dialogue and negotiation is the only viable way out of the crisis. China firmly opposes any illicit unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Wednesday, repeating his statement on the issue from Tuesday almost verbatim. “We hope parties will help create the atmosphere and conditions for a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, and act in ways conducive to promoting talks for peace.”
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping himself met with Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, on Tuesday on the sidelines of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The Chinese readout of that meeting did not discuss the tariffs directly, but Xi emphasized the importance of helping “deepen the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination [and] strengthen mutual support in multilateral fora, safeguard their development and security interests.”
“Both sides should support each other, steer the development course of the SCO, continuously inject new momentum, and make this strategic platform more substantive and stronger,” Xi reportedly said.
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