Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/8116461
Despite the war in Ukraine, Beijing and Moscow have developed closer ties in areas other than energy over the last two years.
Overall trade between China and Russia hit a fresh record high of $240 billion in 2023, up 26% from the previous year. That means the two countries have achieved a goal set in 2019 about a year ahead of schedule.
The EU is still buying
Russianoil that comes in non-Russian tankers which just happen to “find it” in international waters (pumped over from Russian tankers).Despite that, Russia’s economy is in a much worse situation than it might look at first glance. For example, Russia is selling oil to India… but gets paid in Rupees (instead of Rubles) which they have no easy way to exchange for anything else… and now instead of selling weapons to India, Russia is failing on their delivery promises, while buying weapons from India… which still leaves them with an excess of Rupees to burn from the oil trade, so they’ve started “investing in India” too.
Meaning: India is not only getting Russian oil on the cheap, but also getting Russian expertise and workers basically for free.
A similar thing is happening with China, who is paying for Russian oil in Yuan, and everyone else, since pretty much nobody wants Rubles anymore. From being able to print as much money as they wanted, even buying stuff with debt like the US does (by pinkie swearing they’d give some more back in the future), Russia has become the bottom dog, depending on everyone else’s good will to get anything in exchange for their oil.
Meanwhile, they’ve suffered a massive brain drain, their production infrastructure is in shambles, and they’re building other countries’ infrastructure instead.
Some optimistic estimates are that Russia won’t get out of the hole they’ve thrown themselves into, for at least 25 years after the Ukrainian war ends… and for every day that it continues, Russia’s future looks more bleak.
I see Russia’s s need for survival the same way when Japan was sanctioned during WW2. Japan didn’t survive simply because they can’t sustain a long war, where they can’t replenish their resources fast enough.
For Russia to even survive, they need to find allies quickly so they can sustain in the long run. I think they see that in China. However Russia will need to stay dormant for quite sometimes, because they won’t be able to fight head-on against the backer of Europe, the US. Russia will simply lose. They need to passively maintaining their power while piggyback on China for support.
And rubble is worthless, no doubt about that. What they’ll do now is to rebuilt their East-based economy, by piling up large amount of reserve currency, such as Yuan. They have been trying to persuade other countries to do the same by reducing their dependency on the US Dollar. They others need to do that for their plan to work. It doesnt seem to work, at least for now.
Anyway what I found interesting is not about Russia but the emergence of India. India’s boldness to defy the call for Russia’s sanction and to take advantage of Russia’s desperation to sell their resources is simply brazen and unheard of. I think the Ukraine conflict has incidentally propel India as a serious emerging country, announcing that they have their own projected goals instead of being forced to choose side.
The EU will think now Russia is their enemy. But Russia is not even that powerful if we pull nuclear capability out of the equation. But their alliance with the East will be the real problem as it may accelerate the creation of a more powerful China and ironically revitalise the dying Russia, which in the end will actually strengthen them.