I think it's not China, but pressure from the west forces some Chinese companies to cut ties with Russia. It's not a Chinese initiative. The title kind of implies that it's China as a state, but it's not true.
That is not accurate. Many state owned Chinese companies have been cutting ties, including off the top of my head, Bank of China. It is, without a doubt, driven by western sanction threats, but it does include state owned enterprises.
Look, China and Russia share a long border that can't be credibly monitored. Any analysis of trade that shows a reduction is as likely to be a consequence of improved concealment as an actual change in quantity. The Western world has proven entirely incapable of preventing the flow of contraband -- in every form from fentanyl to fake Nikes -- from China. It is not credible that trade activity between two cooperative states that share a border far from any independent scrutiny can be accurately measured. It just can't.
You'll know when Russia runs out of ball bearings when their trains stop and their conscripts are conducting assaults on horseback. Until then, you should assume China, and anyone else that can make such products, have found a way, and that they're going to keep doing it at least until Russia can no longer pay.
I made no such inference. The opposite, in fact. My argument relies entirely on the organization of large scale concealment of trade. That involves smart, discrete people.
I work in ag in Oregon, and one of our major crops is Hazelnuts. When the whole trump-tariff thing happened, it became much harder to sell hazelnuts in China as the price was hard to justify. Not because of tariffs, but because China was suddenly paying attention to imports. It turns out that the majority of our hazelnuts got into China through less than intended means, and was thus skipping tariffs that were already in place and hadn’t actually changed much.
So I can definitely see a similar sort of “free trade agreement” occurring between China and Russia as there’s very little incentive for either to care to monitor all the busy businessmen, so long as the right palms get greased.
I've read that Turkey is a huge filbert producer but we don't see them on the market because the Italian candy industry buys nearly their whole output. Is there a reason why Oregon sells mainly to China rather than Europe?
I don’t recall what the ratios of our output are for China vs Europe, but the reasons China is such an important buyer and why our hazelnuts are considered preferred/premium are:
-My understanding is that China loves in shell hazelnuts, basically like a traditional thing over there, possibly being related to new year celebrations.
-We have multiple varieties of hazelnuts that each have their advantages and disadvantages. We have a lot that work well for direct eating. It’s more difficult to get exactly what you need from Turkey, since their focus seems mostly about fat content, rather than taste/color/size/texture/shelf-life.
-American reputation for safe and sanity food. Our farms are more sanity (as much as any farm can ever be), less contaminated with pollution and pesticide residues, and we have much more capable cleaning infrastructure where nuts are washed/sanitized(a “kill step”)/dried.
-We control the moths and bacterial blight which results in low amounts of infested nuts going out. If you’ve ever eaten in shell pistachios, you’ll know that occasionally you’ll get a dried worm or shriveled/moldy black nut. Can’t really eliminate it yet, but we keep it at an “acceptable” level.
-We are better at keeping the nuts climate controlled, so they don’t go rancid.
-Geographically we are well positioned, able to send them to the ports within state, and across the pacific.
-When prices are reasonable, the demand in China is big enough that they could completely absorb our output even if we doubled it and sent it all to China. Last I checked we produce about 4-5% of the world output. Turkey is like 75%.
It is entirely unverifiable. It is exactly as unverifiable as this story claiming that Russia/China trade of industrial inputs has been reduced.
There are three major direct railway connections between China and Russia. Exactly zero of these sites have any Western observers with the authority necessary to ensure anything about what is in the box cars. And that's just the railways. There are also roads, boats and aircraft.
We don't know what's going on: we can't measure any of this credibly. Certainly not well enough to draw precision graphics and cite volume numbers with single digit precision.
Beyond that, even if the given numbers are dead nuts accurate, how can we claim this is down to China's better nature as a non-pariah state contributor to international prerogatives? It could also be that Russia just doesn't have enough liquid hard currency to pay. It could be that Russia's demand for industrial inputs has fallen off simply because they're running out of factory workers. There is public data and anecdotal evidence for both of these as well: all similarly unverifiable.
So for me the story fails on both fronts: unverifiable claims about the quantity of trade and unverifiable attribution of the reason for the former.
Ultimately my hang up here is the creation of illusions. We know far less than we pretend, and that is one factor in bad decision making. Acknowledging unknowns -- often a very difficult choice, especially when there is an ample supply of spreadsheet ninjas and graphics artists eager to paint whatever the preferred reality of the day might be -- improves decisions.
I hear a lot about troubles that Russian companies have with making payments to China. I think it is not just concealing, but actual Chinese banks and companies not willing to deal with Russia.
Re: troubles with payments: For all I, or you, know, the money is being concealed as well. Despite the triviality of concealing industrials inputs moving across the unmonitored borders of friendly nations, concealing money is even easier.
I hear about payment issues from Russian companies, they complain in interviews and blog posts in *.ru Also VTB CEO, a top-10 bank in Russia, recently complained in public that China closed their China branch. I think sanctions are working, they do not shut down China-Russia trade but definitely make it difficult.
The western world could do that by locking in pre war percentages of good exports to ALL countries. As in selling on to russia risks starving your own needs.amount limited export is feasable,easily monitorable and effective. Its also political suicide in most "democratic" governments controlled by the economic caste, which just cant imagine they could propell themselves towards a world where there influence is rapidly fading.
Trend of PRC exports to RU still increasing MoM, occasional pause i.e. current hiccups to figure out system to evade threat of secondary sanctions. Many new PRC/RU traders still new to process / being cheap / lazy thinking they can skip middle men.
As for ball bearings, one would hope 2 years is enough for RU to setup their own plants. PRC not just selling them inputs, RU getting capita equipment to build their manufacturing base.
There appear to still be some ball bearing shortages in Russia. The key bottleneck is in skilled manufacturing labor. Their educational system has been a disaster since the collapse of the USSR. They had been relying on foreign experts to manage their factories but those people have left. Obviously Russia can rebuild that capacity eventually but it will probably take a few more years to get back to where they used to be.
Article is analysis from April last year. A lot can happen in 1+ year. They're on war time production now, settling for lower quality / easier to manufacture components considering hardware attrition levels. The $$$ involved for barings in this post also looks pretty small, 3m per month of barings is in line with reconstituting some domestic capability. Military will get priority, plenty of Chinese manufacturing expertise to draw from to setup plants if RU willing to pay. Shortfall is going to be born by civilian sectors - I think that will take a years to catch-up.
Only by omission. An army consists of people who have "joined" but some of them may have been drafted. If the title don't say, it does not imply that they all enlisted voluntarily; that question is left open.
Probably because it makes sense to everyone why India does business with Russia, and they can’t be faulted for it. Briefly it is simply because Russia has been a good friend to India and everyone else has not. A secondary reason is that they are able to buy things from Russia at steep discounts right now and that is very helpful to India’s economy.
As an example aspect of how India might view Western nations: the US was one of the first to recognize Pakistan after the forced partition of India by the British on their way out of South Asia. Despite a long history of harboring terrorist groups (like the Taliban or Al Qaeda) and themselves conducting terrorist attacks, Pakistan was somehow recently designated as a major non NATO ally of the US. India has strained relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh, whose territories were historically part of the Indian / Hindu world, but were taken away to form those nations as part of the partition of India. Obviously given Islamic invaders were the original colonizers of India for hundreds of years, before European colonizers arrived, anyone legitimizing those nations as the US has, will not be seen by India as a reliable friend.
Meanwhile Russia has long supported India and cooperated with them on defense, space, etc. Although Russia does have diplomatic relations that India does not support, they have been a friend to India on very important and sensitive areas like defense. That has made them a very popular ally, not just with the government of India, but also its citizens. They’re seen as being far less fickle than Western partners.
So India finds itself in the middle of all these global conflicts, and is taking a somewhat neutral route that serves its interests well. I think to them, these other conflicts aren’t “their fight” and they’re more focused on their own reality. If other countries take issue with it, we need to work to earn their trust, and give something significant in return for the long history of not treating them as friends. I am no foreign policy expert, but I feel it would be irrational for us to expect them to act against their own interests.
EDIT: I am not sure how to reply to the flagged reply under me, so adding some thoughts here. There is a long and documented history of Islamic Arabs invading India and taking over most of its territory, which is what I was referring to, and which underpins their geopolitical position today:
These invasions involved killing huge numbers of people, settling/occupying their lands (almost the entirety of modern India), ruling over them through authoritarian power, subjugating them, extracting wealth from them, and destructively affecting local culture (for example by demolishing buildings). This is all very literally colonialism, and there are many similarities between this period and the period under European rule. I think that HAS to affect how India evaluates foreign policy today.
I personally don't think partition was a good idea but give me a fucking break with this Hindu-nationalist view that Muslims were the "original colonizers" of India.
Most Islamic empires in India Indianized rapidly, adopting local customs, languages, and traditions. Does this legitimatize invasion/forced conversion? Of course not, but things were different 1300 years ago (first Islamic invasion). No Muslim empire ever ruled the entirety of the subcontinent.
Colonizers? Most Muslim empires came and stayed and did not pilfer to benefit the motherland like the British Raj. India was likely the world's largest economy under the Mughals (Muslims) before the British came and did what they do best.
The most well-known symbol of India, the Taj Mahal, was built under Muslims, exemplifying a blend of Indo-Islamic architecture.
In the modern age of Modi, I keep seeing this garbage viewpoint. The Great Qing dynasty was not Han Chinese, but the Chinese didn't attempt to shed that vital piece of their heritage. I don't care if you're specifically Hindu or not but consider adopting a more nuanced viewpoint.
To add to that, the US tried hard to block India from getting advanced engines for use with space rockets. Initially the US wanted to sell engines to India but the cost was too high. But when India tried to make a deal with Russia, the US immediately stepped in and threatened sanctions to block the deal. This was in the 90s after the fall of the Soviet Union.
> Ukraine also has been a good friend to India but now there is no support.
I’m not familiar with their relations - can you share how they’ve been a good friend? I’ve only heard of their relations after the current conflict began, where there were reports that Africans and Indians faced racism and segregation at the Ukraine border:
Well, Ukraine had been part of the same polity, the SU that supported India politically and logistically during those times. Subjugated and oppressed but still. Lots of those exported arms were produced in Ukraine.
But the real question is how is it that India is always whining about the colonial past yet they are not even prepared to politically confront neoimperial Russia at such minor economic costs.
Xi's replacement might be a Caligula, at least in terms of governing incompetence. He has successfully purged the Party leadership of any potential challengers, leaving only ineffectual sycophants.
Are they actually incompetent? China’s long term planning seems to be effective in that they seem to reach their own stated objectives for the most part. That said, it is possible we can’t know for sure how well they’re actually doing if they’re lying. I also recognize their economy is fragile right now and they could be at a point of instability. But when I look at politics in the US for example, I am not sure we can claim to be any more competent haha.
Xi’s replacement is likely 10-15 years out unless he kicks the bucket, I think that’s too far off to worry about stable system since he’ll be around for a while almost guaranteeing the same system
For a very good reason; it is keeping international oil prices stable and so the world as a whole and in particular; the poorer countries are not devastated. Get a clue about how all economies are highly interlinked together and how to use diplomacy for the benefit of the World. Incidentally, Europe/Americas/Other Developed Countries are also a huge beneficiary of this.
An equivalent economic policy would be if Europe and India were both allowed to buy oil, but capped at India's current amount (let's say 20% of pre-war baseline). Perhaps this can be called a "fractional" embargo.
Is this really desirable? The pain of going from 80% embargoed to 100% is much greater for Russia than 0% to 20% -- a 100% would likely cripple the war. To be fair, not saying that was a card in play due to China, Iran, etc. But arguing it's good economic/diplomatic policy is unclear since it makes the embargo weaker
The paramount objective is Economic stability by controlling/managing global oil price volatility; everything else is secondary (i.e. Realpolitik). That is why the sanctions are full of loopholes for various European countries (see [1] below).
China, the government, ultimately controls and regularly pushes around, China the companies. And the state is definitely aligned, if not outright allied, with Russia at this time (and Iran and Venezuela’s Maduro and Turkey’s Erdogan). I wouldn’t believe any claims that there is somehow an economic war against Russia. However I can see China taking advantage of Russia’s position. They may even try to use economic ties as a way to extract things like cooperation or just territory.
The second half of your comment is right. Russia has limited options for trade partners. That has put India and especially China in a position of strength with respect to trade relations with Russia. Russia has lost a lot of their pricing power and that's why you see India buying their oil at a steep discount.
Another interesting angle is whether China will want to claim some of the lands in the north east of Russia. I remember reading that the Chinese government believes that land is historically Chinese. To my knowledge, there isn’t much behind those claims factually but it signals what their ambitions might be.
It's complicated. A good chunk of territory changed hands after the Convention of Peking. On the other hand, much of that territory has extremely hostile climate and not much to do other than mining fly-in fly-out style. Let's see what happens.
I hope Beijing can put Moscow under its thumb. Russia is radioactive. The last thing Xi wants is an emboldened Pyongyang—he has managed Kim adeptly for years. Constraining it without setting off its nukes is the Congress of Vienna of the 21st century.
What a sad tale for a great culture, albeit a modern empire.
> How Xi can "manage" Kim when Pyongyang already is a telephone government? North Korea is a Chinese proxy.
If you have nukes, you aren't anyone's proxy. If north korea was china's proxy, they wouldn't have nukes to begin with.
> When China wants to increase badness against US, JP, SK, it pushes forward its pawn, and orders Kim to do something to spook them.
If china wants to increase 'badness' against the US, JP, SK, it can impose economic sanctions. If you want an example of proxies, japan and south korea are two of the finest examples. Two countries that are not allowed to own nukes by their master - the US.
> The independence of NK regime when it completely existentially depends on China for everything is a myth.
You are mistaking NK for SK. NK is actually independent. It's why there is so much propaganda against them. If it 'existentially' depended on china for everything, it wouldn't have nukes. SK 'existentially' depends on the US for its existence, just like japan. That's why they don't have nukes.
I know it's counter-intuitive to the silly propaganda you've been force-fed for many years. But try rubbing your two brain cells together.
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It is much more than that; NK is China's "pawn which can be promoted to a queen" if and when a nuke war happens. That is the only aim of its existence.
Well we've heard this story for years about Africa, that the evil PRC is scheming and building the railroads there and handing out loans as a part of some evil "coercive effort"[1] to get poor Africa under its thumb. It could be true, what do I know? It's a great question why they do it and what happens next. But so far I really fail to see the "evil" part of it materialize.
According to the numbers listed, tier 1 volume is on the order of ~300mil/year. Had to double-check the order of magnitude here. That is a rounding error in $100bil/year exports, for the items that can be moved in a few trucks. Has the author considered the possibility that part of this 0.03% of the export volume was just moved off the books after December?
Right. Given the current Geopolitical situation, China is firmly allied with Russia and nothing is going to change it in the near future. Predictions cannot be made as if all relevant data is available to the public.
The US wants the status quo to stay as it is. China is the on aggressively saying it’s going to take Taiwan at a time of their choosing and no one will stop them, even though it really doesn’t gain them anything much other than war in the region and killing their own brethren who just want to be left alone in Taiwan.
One thing i could never understand. And I don't really have a horse in this race, and I feel sorry for everyone who suffers or is unhappy. But why was Hong Kong happily gifted to China (instead of say giving it independence), but Taiwan is so sacred that it's worth risking ww3 to protect it, instead of perhaps negotiating some kind of a special status for it as well? The people who want to be left alone, sure, but were the people of Hong Kong somehow ecstatic about their transfer? or did anyone even bothered asking them at the time? The trends in '97 were already exactly the same as today, the same regime, China was already bulking up.
From my layman's understanding, parts of Hong Kong had to be returned to China according to the terms of a 99-year lease; the rest of it was dependent on the leased territory for stuff like fresh water, so it didn't make sense to hold on to it. Also, there was fear that China would take it by force.
With Taiwan there's no such legal obligation (in fact some even consider Taiwan the legal government of China). It also has an industry of strategic importance (semiconductors) and is much easier to defend: (again, not an expert) I've read opinions that it may not be even possible to invade due to the prohibiting coastal terrain.
While I don't think you're wrong to say that the trends/regime were the same then as today, that's very much more obvious in hindsight than it was at the time. You've got to recall the triumphal attitude in the West towards China circa the run-up to WTO admission in the late 90s. Read Clinton on the topic: https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/Full_Text_of_Clinto...
The trendy thing was to believe that exposure to global markets and the Internet would inevitably result in further liberalization, and anyone who disagreed was probably a car-burning anarchist. It was only in the 2010s that the fact that reality wasn't quite that beneficent started creeping into mainstream neoliberal perspectives.
To be fair, China really had seen massive changes under Deng, so the idea that continued reform would eventually result in major political liberalisation wasn't completely insane. It went from Mao to a semblance of rule of (in retrospect, obviously "by" rather than "of", but whatever) law, so was extending the trend line really so implausible?
In retrospect, obviously, yes, it was implausible. But that general vibe meant that many really did think that the Sino-British Joint Declaration would be respected.
Of course, the actual history of how that whole thing turned out w.r.t. tearing up the treaty and burning the bits in the fires of national-security laws, has altered perspectives on how well Taiwan would cope under rule from Beijing. Now that the concept of one country, two systems - that idea of a special status - is widely understood to be a meaningless platitude, the assumptions that were common at the time of HK reunification are totally invalid. You can see this in trends of polling of Taiwanese attitudes to reunification: as HK has been strangled, the Taiwanese public has come to understand the worthlesness of any of the sort of assurances that were offered to HK, which at the time assauged a lot of objections.
Finally, there's a matter of basic military calculus: HK is a lot harder to defend than Taiwan. It's not a natural polity grounded in geography, and not potentially self-sufficient in the same ways as Taiwan. Thatcher didn't agree in 1984 because she loved and trusted Deng, but because he could credibly have taken it by force in a day and told her so, so, in a very real sense, there wasn't much of an alternative.
Because Taiwan is the casus belli for the war. The US cannot afford losing the “center of gravity” status in the world economy, and China was going to take that away within a decade. By some metrics it’s already gone. It’s clear that the economic war is not going to work, so the usual solution for such a thing is to create a persistent source of instability right next to China, armed to the teeth and ready to die. Same as the US could not afford to lose control in Europe, so it decoupled Russia from Germany by funding a war on Russia’s border and blowing up Germany’s energy supplies. Or how the US was worried about the Arab world unifying and constraining its choices in the region, so it started half a dozen wars there. Or how the US was worried about South America and started wars there as well.
In which they literally agree to cooperate in nearly every economic area.
Neither wants OFAC:
"... Both sides oppose interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries, unilateral sanctions without international law basis or UN Security Council authorization, and 'long-arm jurisdiction' ..."
To my knowledge, these joint statements are not usually officially translated to English (or covered in the Western press).
>China has recently issued many joint statements with Russia, that show that they are in fact going to the opposite direction.
And I wonder why China is supporting Russia like this. I have an wild probably unrealistic theory, but I cannot get it out of my head.
I suspect China as usual is in a long term planning phase, keeping a close eye on Siberia. Helping Russia may make the post-Putin era crash far worse then without that help.
Then China can head north and take Siberia. That area has vast resources, low population and is in the North. China has a large population that may need to head north as Climate Change worsens. So I expect some day China will end up owing Siberia.
Russia has no other options but be friends with China. China knows this, so they will be friends with Russia, to the point when one day Russia has no other way but to become a Chinese province.
Basically they're doing to Russians what Russians were doing to others.
One reason may be that they both have relatively stable authoritarian regimes. Both Putin & Xi can be expected to remain around at least five years, possibly few times longer. Consequently, bilateral cooperation is easier.
This is just wishful thinking, similar to how people dream of "decolonization" of Russia.
Russia will continue having (one of) the largest nuclear stockpiles in the world and you can bet they would use it when China invaded Siberia like that.
It also makes zero sense for China to turn your most important "ally" (in the sense of resistance to the West) to your mortal enemy.
China pushes Russia into the gray zone, squeezing them economically. Officially, they are making it difficult for the Russians to pay and receive payments while unofficially pushing Russian businesses towards "handlers" charging extortionate commissions:
They are not openly hostile to Russia and will not admit to aligning with the West, but they certainly do not want trouble (sanctions) or an open war with Russia. They told Putin they will not pay for the Syberian pipeline, because they don't have to. Given how bad the Russia's economic situation is China can do nothing, squeeze every last penny out of them, and enjoy cheap access to the Russia's mineral resources without having to conquer and run the place.
Short version: no. Mid version: China and Russia are NOT allied, they are ancient enemy temporary united for common interests. Long version China need central Asia resources, Russia already have the largest slice of them, and have some tech China have missed so far. Now China have almost bridged the gap of those tech in air, space, maritime sense (air carriers, space explorations, satellites, planes, ...) so they need Russia almost ONLY for natural resources, meanwhile central Asia is in the think of a so far only economical war, but still a war, and relative local powers like Kazakhstan, Mongolia etc try to play all sides to improve their situation a bit. China is not much friendly for them, but offer a very powerful industrial system able to provide essentially any good, while Russia is better known, without language barriers (almost anyone in central Asia also speak/can read and write Russian) and already know their infra, since it was build by the Soviet, but can't offer much more than "the past" and is a competitor as a natural resources supplier, so the pivot to China is a bit prevalent.
The real point is that EU interests are with the EAEU, being all Europeans till the Urals, being almost compatible (EAEU is like ancient ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) the base of the modern EU) technically is the most reasonable move for both party:
- they both need an ally, the western need natural resources and space, the easterner modern industry and management;
- they are in territorial continuity, and both can't much invade each others;
- they are both oppressed by their current allied, the EU driven by conflicting USA/UK interests, Russia by the China dominance and economical colonization of the Siberia and the Russian Far East.
That's a socially nearly utopia but technically most sound partnership. China knows that and they need to avoid that as the USA and the UK. If that happen for a reason or another China, USA, UK are simply dead because they can only kill each others in an economical al military war both falling on their own internal weakness. So China need to control Russia, but not allow it to strength much, the USA/UK need to control EU. They have a point in common, but a conflicting one, so it's very unlikely they agree on anything.
Aside China need South America, something USA can't accept at all, but can't really go to war, at least that's the last thing they do want. On the other side UK in primis, but also USA desperately need a global war, UK to avoid a civil war, witch is VERY near due to a completely failed economy and way too much general population poverty, USA and in a far better status but they can't lose nor south America nor the dollar dominance so they need a war a well. The probability of an alliance in such war between USA/UK and China is very unlikely, their ruling class is very similar in thinking terms, but they are definitively conflicting without much choice. They are not like Nazi-Fascist-Japan axe today because resources are scarce for all.
I'm not sure you can tell much from ball bearing data but China has strategic reasons to want Russia to fail economically. Basically the still resent Russia taking the lands north of Beijing and Russia being broke would increase their chances of returning some. Already they've been changing some names on the map https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/13560
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 153 ms ] threadIt's individual Chinese companies being intimidated by American market denial who cut ties in Russia, not the other way around at all.
Chinese state companies continue to work with Russia as usual.
Change the headline.
You'll know when Russia runs out of ball bearings when their trains stop and their conscripts are conducting assaults on horseback. Until then, you should assume China, and anyone else that can make such products, have found a way, and that they're going to keep doing it at least until Russia can no longer pay.
Have you done business in China? They’re not idiots. Russia’s GDP is half of California’s.
I made no such inference. The opposite, in fact. My argument relies entirely on the organization of large scale concealment of trade. That involves smart, discrete people.
So I can definitely see a similar sort of “free trade agreement” occurring between China and Russia as there’s very little incentive for either to care to monitor all the busy businessmen, so long as the right palms get greased.
The easiest place for hazelnuts to go upon leaving Turkey is pretty much Italy, especially without paying for the Suez Canal
-My understanding is that China loves in shell hazelnuts, basically like a traditional thing over there, possibly being related to new year celebrations.
-We have multiple varieties of hazelnuts that each have their advantages and disadvantages. We have a lot that work well for direct eating. It’s more difficult to get exactly what you need from Turkey, since their focus seems mostly about fat content, rather than taste/color/size/texture/shelf-life.
-American reputation for safe and sanity food. Our farms are more sanity (as much as any farm can ever be), less contaminated with pollution and pesticide residues, and we have much more capable cleaning infrastructure where nuts are washed/sanitized(a “kill step”)/dried.
-We control the moths and bacterial blight which results in low amounts of infested nuts going out. If you’ve ever eaten in shell pistachios, you’ll know that occasionally you’ll get a dried worm or shriveled/moldy black nut. Can’t really eliminate it yet, but we keep it at an “acceptable” level.
-We are better at keeping the nuts climate controlled, so they don’t go rancid.
-Geographically we are well positioned, able to send them to the ports within state, and across the pacific.
-When prices are reasonable, the demand in China is big enough that they could completely absorb our output even if we doubled it and sent it all to China. Last I checked we produce about 4-5% of the world output. Turkey is like 75%.
There are three major direct railway connections between China and Russia. Exactly zero of these sites have any Western observers with the authority necessary to ensure anything about what is in the box cars. And that's just the railways. There are also roads, boats and aircraft.
We don't know what's going on: we can't measure any of this credibly. Certainly not well enough to draw precision graphics and cite volume numbers with single digit precision.
Beyond that, even if the given numbers are dead nuts accurate, how can we claim this is down to China's better nature as a non-pariah state contributor to international prerogatives? It could also be that Russia just doesn't have enough liquid hard currency to pay. It could be that Russia's demand for industrial inputs has fallen off simply because they're running out of factory workers. There is public data and anecdotal evidence for both of these as well: all similarly unverifiable.
So for me the story fails on both fronts: unverifiable claims about the quantity of trade and unverifiable attribution of the reason for the former.
Ultimately my hang up here is the creation of illusions. We know far less than we pretend, and that is one factor in bad decision making. Acknowledging unknowns -- often a very difficult choice, especially when there is an ample supply of spreadsheet ninjas and graphics artists eager to paint whatever the preferred reality of the day might be -- improves decisions.
Re: troubles with payments: For all I, or you, know, the money is being concealed as well. Despite the triviality of concealing industrials inputs moving across the unmonitored borders of friendly nations, concealing money is even easier.
Yep, quite different from Egypt-Sector Gaza border))
As for ball bearings, one would hope 2 years is enough for RU to setup their own plants. PRC not just selling them inputs, RU getting capita equipment to build their manufacturing base.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-sanctions-ukraine-war-fuel-t...
Only by omission. An army consists of people who have "joined" but some of them may have been drafted. If the title don't say, it does not imply that they all enlisted voluntarily; that question is left open.
As an example aspect of how India might view Western nations: the US was one of the first to recognize Pakistan after the forced partition of India by the British on their way out of South Asia. Despite a long history of harboring terrorist groups (like the Taliban or Al Qaeda) and themselves conducting terrorist attacks, Pakistan was somehow recently designated as a major non NATO ally of the US. India has strained relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh, whose territories were historically part of the Indian / Hindu world, but were taken away to form those nations as part of the partition of India. Obviously given Islamic invaders were the original colonizers of India for hundreds of years, before European colonizers arrived, anyone legitimizing those nations as the US has, will not be seen by India as a reliable friend.
Meanwhile Russia has long supported India and cooperated with them on defense, space, etc. Although Russia does have diplomatic relations that India does not support, they have been a friend to India on very important and sensitive areas like defense. That has made them a very popular ally, not just with the government of India, but also its citizens. They’re seen as being far less fickle than Western partners.
So India finds itself in the middle of all these global conflicts, and is taking a somewhat neutral route that serves its interests well. I think to them, these other conflicts aren’t “their fight” and they’re more focused on their own reality. If other countries take issue with it, we need to work to earn their trust, and give something significant in return for the long history of not treating them as friends. I am no foreign policy expert, but I feel it would be irrational for us to expect them to act against their own interests.
EDIT: I am not sure how to reply to the flagged reply under me, so adding some thoughts here. There is a long and documented history of Islamic Arabs invading India and taking over most of its territory, which is what I was referring to, and which underpins their geopolitical position today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests_in_the_Indian...
These invasions involved killing huge numbers of people, settling/occupying their lands (almost the entirety of modern India), ruling over them through authoritarian power, subjugating them, extracting wealth from them, and destructively affecting local culture (for example by demolishing buildings). This is all very literally colonialism, and there are many similarities between this period and the period under European rule. I think that HAS to affect how India evaluates foreign policy today.
Most Islamic empires in India Indianized rapidly, adopting local customs, languages, and traditions. Does this legitimatize invasion/forced conversion? Of course not, but things were different 1300 years ago (first Islamic invasion). No Muslim empire ever ruled the entirety of the subcontinent.
Colonizers? Most Muslim empires came and stayed and did not pilfer to benefit the motherland like the British Raj. India was likely the world's largest economy under the Mughals (Muslims) before the British came and did what they do best.
The most well-known symbol of India, the Taj Mahal, was built under Muslims, exemplifying a blend of Indo-Islamic architecture.
In the modern age of Modi, I keep seeing this garbage viewpoint. The Great Qing dynasty was not Han Chinese, but the Chinese didn't attempt to shed that vital piece of their heritage. I don't care if you're specifically Hindu or not but consider adopting a more nuanced viewpoint.
Who cares what the US stance and role in this is. India is a big boy and this is their stance in Ukraine's anticolonial struggle.
I’m not familiar with their relations - can you share how they’ve been a good friend? I’ve only heard of their relations after the current conflict began, where there were reports that Africans and Indians faced racism and segregation at the Ukraine border:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/28/europe/students-allege-racism...
But the real question is how is it that India is always whining about the colonial past yet they are not even prepared to politically confront neoimperial Russia at such minor economic costs.
At deep discounts. Discounts which finance its balancing vis-à-vis China. It’s a stable system, provided Xi’s replacement isn’t a Caligula.
'India deserves a thank you for purchasing Russian oil': EAM S Jaishankar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NYRk_Vgm-g
The World Is Thanking Us For Buying Russian Oil: Hardeep Singh Puri | Davos 2024 - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VDpVY44rNUw
An equivalent economic policy would be if Europe and India were both allowed to buy oil, but capped at India's current amount (let's say 20% of pre-war baseline). Perhaps this can be called a "fractional" embargo.
Is this really desirable? The pain of going from 80% embargoed to 100% is much greater for Russia than 0% to 20% -- a 100% would likely cripple the war. To be fair, not saying that was a card in play due to China, Iran, etc. But arguing it's good economic/diplomatic policy is unclear since it makes the embargo weaker
1) The disillusionment and hope of Western sanctions against Russia - https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/disillusionment-russia-sa...
2) The impact of Russia–Ukraine war on crude oil prices: an EMC framework - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02526-9
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/09/04/c...
It's complicated. A good chunk of territory changed hands after the Convention of Peking. On the other hand, much of that territory has extremely hostile climate and not much to do other than mining fly-in fly-out style. Let's see what happens.
What a sad tale for a great culture, albeit a modern empire.
How Xi can "manage" Kim when Pyongyang already is a telephone government? North Korea is a Chinese proxy.
When China wants to increase badness against US, JP, SK, it pushes forward its pawn, and orders Kim to do something to spook them.
The independence of NK regime when it completely existentially depends on China for everything is a myth.
If you have nukes, you aren't anyone's proxy. If north korea was china's proxy, they wouldn't have nukes to begin with.
> When China wants to increase badness against US, JP, SK, it pushes forward its pawn, and orders Kim to do something to spook them.
If china wants to increase 'badness' against the US, JP, SK, it can impose economic sanctions. If you want an example of proxies, japan and south korea are two of the finest examples. Two countries that are not allowed to own nukes by their master - the US.
> The independence of NK regime when it completely existentially depends on China for everything is a myth.
You are mistaking NK for SK. NK is actually independent. It's why there is so much propaganda against them. If it 'existentially' depended on china for everything, it wouldn't have nukes. SK 'existentially' depends on the US for its existence, just like japan. That's why they don't have nukes.
I know it's counter-intuitive to the silly propaganda you've been force-fed for many years. But try rubbing your two brain cells together.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
It is much more than that; NK is China's "pawn which can be promoted to a queen" if and when a nuke war happens. That is the only aim of its existence.
https://www.state.gov/assessing-u-s-efforts-to-counter-china...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
How do you start a war on allied territory to contain your enemy (that hasn't even invaded yet)? How is it exactly "containing"?
With Taiwan there's no such legal obligation (in fact some even consider Taiwan the legal government of China). It also has an industry of strategic importance (semiconductors) and is much easier to defend: (again, not an expert) I've read opinions that it may not be even possible to invade due to the prohibiting coastal terrain.
The trendy thing was to believe that exposure to global markets and the Internet would inevitably result in further liberalization, and anyone who disagreed was probably a car-burning anarchist. It was only in the 2010s that the fact that reality wasn't quite that beneficent started creeping into mainstream neoliberal perspectives.
To be fair, China really had seen massive changes under Deng, so the idea that continued reform would eventually result in major political liberalisation wasn't completely insane. It went from Mao to a semblance of rule of (in retrospect, obviously "by" rather than "of", but whatever) law, so was extending the trend line really so implausible?
In retrospect, obviously, yes, it was implausible. But that general vibe meant that many really did think that the Sino-British Joint Declaration would be respected.
Of course, the actual history of how that whole thing turned out w.r.t. tearing up the treaty and burning the bits in the fires of national-security laws, has altered perspectives on how well Taiwan would cope under rule from Beijing. Now that the concept of one country, two systems - that idea of a special status - is widely understood to be a meaningless platitude, the assumptions that were common at the time of HK reunification are totally invalid. You can see this in trends of polling of Taiwanese attitudes to reunification: as HK has been strangled, the Taiwanese public has come to understand the worthlesness of any of the sort of assurances that were offered to HK, which at the time assauged a lot of objections.
Finally, there's a matter of basic military calculus: HK is a lot harder to defend than Taiwan. It's not a natural polity grounded in geography, and not potentially self-sufficient in the same ways as Taiwan. Thatcher didn't agree in 1984 because she loved and trusted Deng, but because he could credibly have taken it by force in a day and told her so, so, in a very real sense, there wasn't much of an alternative.
For example: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/05/24/china-russia-join...
In which they literally agree to cooperate in nearly every economic area.
Neither wants OFAC:
"... Both sides oppose interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries, unilateral sanctions without international law basis or UN Security Council authorization, and 'long-arm jurisdiction' ..."
To my knowledge, these joint statements are not usually officially translated to English (or covered in the Western press).
And I wonder why China is supporting Russia like this. I have an wild probably unrealistic theory, but I cannot get it out of my head.
I suspect China as usual is in a long term planning phase, keeping a close eye on Siberia. Helping Russia may make the post-Putin era crash far worse then without that help.
Then China can head north and take Siberia. That area has vast resources, low population and is in the North. China has a large population that may need to head north as Climate Change worsens. So I expect some day China will end up owing Siberia.
Basically they're doing to Russians what Russians were doing to others.
Russia will continue having (one of) the largest nuclear stockpiles in the world and you can bet they would use it when China invaded Siberia like that.
It also makes zero sense for China to turn your most important "ally" (in the sense of resistance to the West) to your mortal enemy.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-banks-reject-80-russian-0...
They are not openly hostile to Russia and will not admit to aligning with the West, but they certainly do not want trouble (sanctions) or an open war with Russia. They told Putin they will not pay for the Syberian pipeline, because they don't have to. Given how bad the Russia's economic situation is China can do nothing, squeeze every last penny out of them, and enjoy cheap access to the Russia's mineral resources without having to conquer and run the place.
The real point is that EU interests are with the EAEU, being all Europeans till the Urals, being almost compatible (EAEU is like ancient ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) the base of the modern EU) technically is the most reasonable move for both party:
- they both need an ally, the western need natural resources and space, the easterner modern industry and management;
- they are in territorial continuity, and both can't much invade each others;
- they are both oppressed by their current allied, the EU driven by conflicting USA/UK interests, Russia by the China dominance and economical colonization of the Siberia and the Russian Far East.
That's a socially nearly utopia but technically most sound partnership. China knows that and they need to avoid that as the USA and the UK. If that happen for a reason or another China, USA, UK are simply dead because they can only kill each others in an economical al military war both falling on their own internal weakness. So China need to control Russia, but not allow it to strength much, the USA/UK need to control EU. They have a point in common, but a conflicting one, so it's very unlikely they agree on anything.
Aside China need South America, something USA can't accept at all, but can't really go to war, at least that's the last thing they do want. On the other side UK in primis, but also USA desperately need a global war, UK to avoid a civil war, witch is VERY near due to a completely failed economy and way too much general population poverty, USA and in a far better status but they can't lose nor south America nor the dollar dominance so they need a war a well. The probability of an alliance in such war between USA/UK and China is very unlikely, their ruling class is very similar in thinking terms, but they are definitively conflicting without much choice. They are not like Nazi-Fascist-Japan axe today because resources are scarce for all.