Russia Ships More to China Than Ever. It Earns Less.

Chinese customs put two-way trade at US$228.105 billion in 2025, a 6.9% fall from the record US$245 billion in 2024 — the first decline since 2020, after four consecutive years of uninterrupted expansion. In yuan terms it fell 6.5%, from 1.74 trillion to roughly 1.63 trillion. MERICS records the same 6.9% drop while noting the year closed with record monthly levels in December, which is the first sign that the fall may be a repricing rather than a retreat.

The largest single component was crude. Chinese customs show the value of Russian crude imports down nearly 19.6% year-on-year to 328.5 billion yuan over the first eleven months of 2025 — and Mazumdar is explicit that this happened 'despite stable shipment volumes'. That is a price effect, not a blockade. The second was vehicles: Chinese car exports to Russia fell about 46% (January–November 2025), driven substantially by Russia's own localization policies and recycling fees rather than by any Western measure. China also suspended electricity imports from January 2026 over pricing. Likely rather than Confirmed because apportioning weight between softer commodity prices, Russian protectionism and sanctions pressure is our reading of the composition — the customs data reports the totals, not the causes.

The physical relationship is at records while the dollar value falls. MERICS records Russian oil exports to China above 108 million tonnes in 2024, up about 30% since 2022; LNG nearly quadrupling between 2019 and 2025 to a record 9.9 million tonnes; pipeline gas at 38.8 bcm in 2025. More than 70% of the trade's value has been mineral fuels since February 2022. Chinese dual-use exports to Russia exceeded US$4 billion in 2024 and stayed above US$4 billion across 2025. Beznosiuk reads this as decisive: 'China's trade and financial support has been the backbone of Russia's wartime resilience', with up to 80% of Russia's sanctions circumvention now involving Chinese entities. Uncertain because the identical figures carry the opposite reading — a buyer taking record tonnage at a falling price is also a buyer whose supplier has nowhere else to sell. Both are true; which one is the story depends on whether you are counting barrels or leverage.

This is where sanctions actually bite, and it is not the trade — it is the payment. MERICS records the yuan's share of Russia's external trade peaking near 40% in January 2024 and falling back to roughly 30% following US sanctions threats: under pressure, the currency channel went backwards. Sberbank's first deputy chairman Alexander Vedyakhin describes the mechanics from the inside: 'Payment routes are becoming many times more complex, requiring the inclusion of additional intermediary banks, which often reject payments without providing a detailed explanation.' Chinese banks are balancing access to Russian trade against access to the dollar system, and choosing the dollar — the SCMP frames it as the practical limit of de-dollarisation. Mazumdar's structural conclusion follows: 'emergency-driven trade expansion has natural limits', and further growth would require joint ventures and localized production rather than more cross-border shipments.