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Russia has found itself in an unequal relationship with China since intensifying its pivot toward Beijing after the assault on Ukraine.
Since Western countries imposed sanctions on Moscow, bilateral trade between the two neighbors has reached a record $190 billion and the proportion of Russian foreign trade carried out in yuan has gone from 0.5 percent to 16 percent.
“It’s absolutely critical for Russia to be close to China, because Russia doesn’t have many trade friends,” Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, told AFP.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is now preparing to host Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week.
The two last met when Putin visited Beijing three weeks before launching his campaign in Ukraine.
Ties between the two countries are particularly strong in the energy sector, which has been heavily targeted by Western sanctions.
“China and India have replaced the European Union as Russia’s most important export market” for oil, said a group of economists from the Institute of International Finance.
Along with Turkey, China and India accounted for two-thirds of Russia’s crude oil exports in the fourth quarter last year.
