The People's Republic of China began to trade less with the aggressor country russia. In the first half of 2025, trade between the countries fell to the lowest level in the last three years.
According to The Moscow Times, Reuters reported this yesterday, August 19.
The Minister of Industry and Trade of the russian federation Anton Alikhanov announced the decrease in bilateral trade between China and russia.
"This year we are recording a certain decrease in mutual trade <...> The reasons for such dynamics, of course, are diverse. This is the negative impact of sanctions, other forms of external economic pressure on our countries and volatility in individual commodity markets," the russian minister said.
Reuters cited data from the Chinese customs, according to which from January to July of this year, trade between the countries decreased by 8% to USD 125.8 billion.
The Moscow Times writes that the russian Gaidar Institute cited data indicating a reduction in China's purchases of almost all key raw materials from russia.
Thus, Beijing has reduced imports of russian oil, oil products, liquefied natural gas (LNG), wood and coal. At the same time, China has increased purchases of natural gas, nickel, aluminum and copper.
At the same time, China has reduced its own supplies to the russian federation: in the first half of this year they fell by 9%.
Alikhanov believes that we should not expect a return to the rapid growth of trade between the russian federation and China.
"In the medium term, we should expect more moderate growth rates of mutual trade than before," he said.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on August 18, the German Foreign Ministry stated that without support from China, the aggressor country russia would not have been able to wage a long war against Ukraine.
As a reminder, in early August, the Office of the President of Ukraine stated that Beijing had not responded in any way to evidence of the use of Chinese components in russian weapons, which Kyiv had repeatedly provided.
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