Sino-Russia ties a trouble for West!

Before the Russia-Ukraine war, China and Russia had already come very close to each other in politics, diplomacy and trade, but after this war, the relationship between the two countries has grown surprisingly close.

Last year, in 2021, China was Russia’s largest trading partner, while Russia was at the 15th place among China’s trading partners. The trade partnership between China and Russia increased more than double in this one-year turnaround and Russia fell from 15th to fourth place among China’s trading partners. A year ago the volume of bilateral trade between the two countries was $68 billion and in a year the volume of bilateral trade increased to over $1 trillion. Thus, the balance of trade also shifted in favour of Russia. China became the largest market for Russian oil, gas, coal and agricultural products, while the Russian trade with China went into surplus.

The increase in the Russia-China trade started in 2014. The rise began after Russia annexed Crimea. Ukraine claimed its right to Crimea and considered it as its part, and Europe was its partner in this claim of Ukraine.

While peninsular Crimea was an independent region and Ukraine wanted to establish its authority there by considering it as its part. Russia was not willing to accept this situation, so Russia annexed Crimea into its state borders. Russia’s stance was that Crimea was its new part, and an independent government supported by Russia was also established there, but at the same time, the United States and Europe imposed various sanctions on Russia.

The Crimea incident brought China and Russia closer to each other and after 2014, Russia’s largest trade partnership with China was established, which began to develop rapidly after the Russia-Ukraine war that year. During the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Beijing, it was decided that the volume of bilateral trade will be increased from over $1 trillion to $2.5 trillion.

Currently, China is getting a major portion of its oil needs from Saudi Arabia, and the remaining portion from Russia. Almost two decades ago, China had decided that through magical development and establishment of state-of-the-art infrastructure, it would move a large part of its population to the West, Northwest and Southwest, while maintaining rapid growth in its East, Northeast and Southeast regions; thereby, surprising the Western world.

Now, rapid development is taking place in the western, southwestern, northwestern and northern regions of China. China is getting over 0.24 million barrels of oil from Russia on a daily basis. China is receiving most of its Russian oil from a pipeline in the Pacific Ocean adjacent to eastern Syria and this pipeline is being built with a $50 billion loan from China.

The effects of China-Russia growing relations are affecting Europe. Now, the consumption of Chinese goods is increasing more than European goods in the Russian market. This clearly means that the economic cooperation between Russia and China is having a negative impact on the European exports.

Now, the European exporters are worried about what will happen to them if Russia and China end tariffs on each other’s merchandise.

I have mentioned it in one of my previous articles that due to the increase in the rate of production by the United States in the US-China trade war, the arrival of Chinese merchandise in the US would have definitely decreased, but still in many sectors, the American trade sector is in need of the Chinese products and production.

It is now clear that if the trade relations between China and Russia continue to develop in the same way, the European trade in the fields of electronic machinery, equipment, machinery and nuclear reactors will suffer a severe blow.

The development of trade relations between Russia and China began 33 years from now when the Chinese Communist Party integrated Chinese characteristics into communist ideology and declared that China would achieve communism by maximising the mobilisation of its productive forces and will set new heights of development, while on the other hand, the Russian Communist Party under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev had taken state and ideological retreat and was rapidly moving towards ideological and state collapse.

Deng Zhaoping in China was looking for new ways of development, while in Russia (former Soviet Union) Gorbachev was looking for new ways of decline and destruction. In the Soviet Union, new anthems were being written to the new music of Gula Snot and Perserotica, while China in its state organisations and ideological spheres, was exploring new love and new songs by introducing Chinese characteristics.

European and Western countries beat the drum of the Communist Party’s organisational dictatorship in China and Vladimir Putin’s personal dictatorship in Russia and take away all the dreams of the real joys of life from the people of the developed and developing world, including billions of people in Asia, Africa and Latin America by giving them dream pills of human rights protection.

At other stages of the national lives of China and Russia, it was normal for the West and Europe to come closer to each other, but this did not prove to be ordinary. The total bilateral trade volume of China and Russia increased manifold. Both countries surprised the world by exploring markets in America and Europe. In 2014, I was walking in the market of Paris with one of my Pakistani friend. He told me innocently that a few years ago, all the business of this market was in the possession of Jews, there is a business of billions and trillions of euros annually but this market has been captured by the Chinese since last year

While traveling in Europe, if you suddenly look up, wherever your eyes fall on the people’s faces you will definitely see some Chinese.

Rather, the Chinese will be seen in large numbers at some places. Whether you go to the Eiffel Tower or you visit the Coliseum of Ancient Rome, the Tower of Pisa or visit the Warwick Castle in the UK or the Edinburgh Castle, there you will find souvenirs of those places that are made in China. Similarly, the involvement of the Russian companies in the energy sector in Europe has increased significantly.

In the days when the clouds of the Ukraine war were hovering, Britain instructed its government agencies to review their contracts with the Russian energy companies; the British government suddenly realised that Britain can checkmate Russia by imposing sanctions at the beginning of the war, but without energy, Britain cannot survive. So the sanctions had to be postponed.

A major area of trade between China and Russia is the purchase and sale of ammunition and arms, but many countries, including Russia and China, never release data on arms trade.

Similarly, when the trade figures of these countries are disclosed for public information, the figures of the arms trade are not disclosed. Therefore, economic analysts never know how much profit or loss America, European countries, developed countries Russia and China or other developing countries earn in arms and ammunition business or how kickbacks are taken in this business.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 90s and the long Cold War against Communism came to an end, the arms industry helped Russia get back on its feet and China became a major buyer of Russian arms. Thus, from 1990 to 2001, 17 per cent of Russia’s exports to China were arms and ammunition. Even if the EU closes its trade doors to Russia, the trade between Russia and China will not create a gap.

A specific situation for both countries was the migration of Chinese labour to Russia in the Far East. But that is not the case now. There are not as many opportunities in Russia for the Chinese workforce in the Far East as there are in their own country. Even before the Ukraine war, bilateral trade between Russia and China had been prioritised, but before the war, the data of 2021 shows that The Netherlands was the second largest trading partner of Russia.

The volume of bilateral trade between Russia and The Netherlands last year was over $42 billion. Before the Ukraine war, Russia’s third largest trading partner was Germany. The volume of bilateral trade between Germany and Russia was over $29 billion.

The fourth largest partner of Russia is Turkey and the volume of trade between these two countries is over $26 billion. In the new situation, the closeness between Russia and Turkey has increased. In the recent meetings of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, more warmth has been created in the close ceremonies of the two countries.

The latest four-hour long closed-door meeting between the two leaders resulted in an agreement, under which the two countries will further develop their relations with each other in the economic and energy sectors.

Rulers of the West have been alarmed by the developing cooperation between Russia and Turkey. America openly threatened Turkey with the sanctions and serious consequences. The warmth of Russia-Turkey relations remains a mystery for the West.

A challenge for Erdogan is to create new opportunities and boost the national economy to bring the Turkish economy out of crisis, while Putin is looking for other alternatives for his country in the face of European sanctions.

The case of Russia and China is quite different. Russia has been a superpower of the past, while China is fast becoming an emerging economic superpower. Undoubtedly, China has become the largest industrial country in the world, as if the two countries together have succeeded to a large extent in removing the world from the vortex of the one-pillar New World Order.

China has proved that the world is no longer a one-pillar and now the whole world cannot be driven away by the decree of Washington. Now, the real challenge for both countries is how to create a balance of power in the world. Washington directly dominates the global banking system through the dollar and uses it as a trading instrument. This is why China and Russia express their mistrust of American economic supremacy. But this is a big blow to the supremacy of the United States, which claims to be a one-pillar superpower.

However, 146 countries of the world have signed China’s Belt and Road Initiative. When China will have established a communication network in 146 countries in the world, it will have actually become an economic superpower, while Russia as a former superpower would stand by it and new great solidarity will be born for mutual interests.