The writer is a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in BerlinRussian President Vladimir Putin is about to travel to China on his first foreign trip since securing another six years in the Kremlin. One of his main goals will be finding ways to minimise any disruption to the economic lifeline that China has given his embattled regime since the full-blown invasion of Ukraine. It is notable that during his cabinet reshuffle on Sunday, key officials for Sino-Russian relations remained in place. His new defence minister, Andrei Belousov, is an economist with deep ties to the Chinese leadership.
Since February 2022, Beijing has become the biggest market for Russian oil and gas, as well as a key source of imports. These range from innocent consumer goods to components that keep the military machine going. With the supply of Chinese dual-use goods helping the Kremlin to outproduce Ukraine and the west, leaving Ukrainian defenders facing a Russian firepower advantage, Washington is now trying to cut off that flow.
In December, the White House threatened to impose sanctions on any bank clearing payments for the Russian war machine. Earlier this year, US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen and secretary of state Antony Blinken visited China and laid out the threats to Chinese leaders and financial institutions. For now, these seem to have had some effect. Chinese exports to Russia dropped by 15.7 per cent in March and by 13.5 per cent in April compared with the same period last year.