8 ms·

China is slowly joining the economic war against Russia?

76 points by mrcgnc 2y ago

tananaev 2y ago
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.
- jitl 2y ago
  Yes that’s what the article says
- baybal2 2y ago
  The headline is completely disinformative. It'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.
  - dang 2y ago
    We've made it questionable.
  - spywaregorilla 2y ago
    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.
- topspin 2y ago
  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.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - topspin 2y ago
      > They’re not idiots. 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.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        The point is trading with Russia threatens China’s trade with America. It is irrational for Beijing to condone it.
        topspin 2y ago
        The Chinese understand plausible deniability.
  - Modified3019 2y ago
    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.
    - wrp 2y ago
      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?
- maxglute 2y ago
  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.
  - rramadass 2y ago
    This is the right answer.
  - rekoros 2y ago
    I don’t fully understand the words you’ve used, but it feels that RU market is too small to justify building plants?
    - maxglute 2y ago
      PRC selling RU machines (capital equipment) to build their own plants.
  - nradov 2y ago
    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. https://www.newsweek.com/russia-sanctions-ukraine-war-fuel-tires-paper-spare-parts-shortages-1827373 https://www.newsweek.com/russia-sanctions-ukraine-war-fuel-t...
    - maxglute 2y ago
      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.
- AlbertCory 2y ago
  > The title kind of implies that it's China 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.
- _xerces_ 2y ago
  That's what the article states, though it emphasizes the influence of banks on those companies wanting to do business with Russia. It is worth a read!
b3ing 2y ago
India still does business with them, yet there’s no push back about it.
- throwxr 2y ago
  Europe & america also do business with Russia.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  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: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests_in_the_Indian_subcontinent 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.
linearrust 2y ago
[flagged]
- mrjin 2y ago
  The author has no idea what he was talking about. China was pushed to support Russia and got asked why...
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
[flagged]
- baybal2 2y ago
  > The last thing Xi wants is an emboldened Pyongyang—he has managed Kim adeptly for years. 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.
  - linearrust 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - dzhiurgis 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - dang 2y ago
      We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamewar comments and badly breaking HN's rules. Please don't create accounts to do that with. 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
  - rramadass 2y ago
    > North Korea is a Chinese proxy. 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.
- twelve40 2y ago
  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. https://www.state.gov/assessing-u-s-efforts-to-counter-chinas-coercive-belt-and-road-diplomacy/ https://www.state.gov/assessing-u-s-efforts-to-counter-china...
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
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.
- __loam 2y ago
  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.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    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.
    - wumeow 2y ago
      China has already begun salami slicing bits of Russia https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/09/04/china-is-redefining-its-borders-with-its-neighbors-including-russia_6122600_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/09/04/c...
      - surfingdino 2y ago
        That's not "slicing" that's Xi taking out his box of crayons and having a go at being Lord Curzon.
    - 2y ago
twelve40 2y ago
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?
- rramadass 2y ago
  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.
ein0p 2y ago
[flagged]
- geoka9 2y ago
  > which is chomping at the bit to start a war in Taiwan to “contain” China. How do you start a war on allied territory to contain your enemy (that hasn't even invaded yet)? How is it exactly "containing"?
  - ein0p 2y ago
    [flagged]
- wumeow 2y ago
  No, the US does not want to start a war in the country that it gets ~all of it’s advanced semiconductors from.
  - twelve40 2y ago
    surely this semiconductor situation that gets tossed around is temporary and solvable in the long term?
- EasyMark 2y ago
  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.
  - twelve40 2y ago
    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.
linearrust 2y ago
[flagged]
Xen9 2y ago
China has recently issued many joint statements with Russia, that show that they are in fact going to the opposite direction. For example: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/05/24/china-russia-joint-statement-new-era-75th-anniversary/ 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).
- jmclnx 2y ago
  >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.
  - anal_reactor 2y ago
    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.
  - Xen9 2y ago
    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.
m3kw9 2y ago
China can send all sorts of stuff to them that cannot be tracked. How does anyone track a plane loaded to the brim sent to Russia
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  Even if it’s a Comac plane - by tracking GE’s avionics and RR’s engines via sat ew.
surfingdino 2y ago
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: https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-banks-reject-80-russian-082131174.html 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.
kkfx 2y ago
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.
tim333 2y ago
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 https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/13560
londons_explore 2y ago
Isn't $5m/month pretty much zero for nations the side of Russia and China?
IYasha 2y ago
I rarely comment, but I'm really tired of political articles on HN.
mediumsmart 2y ago
It’s not the despair, I can stand the despair. It’s the hope.

76 points by mrcgnc 2y ago

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.

jitl 2y ago
Yes that’s what the article says
baybal2 2y ago
The headline is completely disinformative. It'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.
- dang 2y ago
  We've made it questionable.
- spywaregorilla 2y ago
  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.
topspin 2y ago
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.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - topspin 2y ago
    > They’re not idiots. 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.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      The point is trading with Russia threatens China’s trade with America. It is irrational for Beijing to condone it.
      - topspin 2y ago
        The Chinese understand plausible deniability.
- Modified3019 2y ago
  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.
  - wrp 2y ago
    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?
maxglute 2y ago
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.
- rramadass 2y ago
  This is the right answer.
- rekoros 2y ago
  I don’t fully understand the words you’ve used, but it feels that RU market is too small to justify building plants?
  - maxglute 2y ago
    PRC selling RU machines (capital equipment) to build their own plants.
- nradov 2y ago
  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. https://www.newsweek.com/russia-sanctions-ukraine-war-fuel-tires-paper-spare-parts-shortages-1827373 https://www.newsweek.com/russia-sanctions-ukraine-war-fuel-t...
  - maxglute 2y ago
    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.
AlbertCory 2y ago
> The title kind of implies that it's China 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.
_xerces_ 2y ago
That's what the article states, though it emphasizes the influence of banks on those companies wanting to do business with Russia. It is worth a read!

b3ing 2y ago

India still does business with them, yet there’s no push back about it.

throwxr 2y ago
Europe & america also do business with Russia.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
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: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests_in_the_Indian_subcontinent 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.

linearrust 2y ago

[flagged]

mrjin 2y ago
The author has no idea what he was talking about. China was pushed to support Russia and got asked why...

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

[flagged]

baybal2 2y ago
> The last thing Xi wants is an emboldened Pyongyang—he has managed Kim adeptly for years. 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.
- linearrust 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dzhiurgis 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - dang 2y ago
    We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamewar comments and badly breaking HN's rules. Please don't create accounts to do that with. 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- rramadass 2y ago
  > North Korea is a Chinese proxy. 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.
twelve40 2y ago
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. https://www.state.gov/assessing-u-s-efforts-to-counter-chinas-coercive-belt-and-road-diplomacy/ https://www.state.gov/assessing-u-s-efforts-to-counter-china...

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

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.

__loam 2y ago
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.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  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.
  - wumeow 2y ago
    China has already begun salami slicing bits of Russia https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/09/04/china-is-redefining-its-borders-with-its-neighbors-including-russia_6122600_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/09/04/c...
    - surfingdino 2y ago
      That's not "slicing" that's Xi taking out his box of crayons and having a go at being Lord Curzon.
  - 2y ago

twelve40 2y ago

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?

rramadass 2y ago
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.

ein0p 2y ago

[flagged]

geoka9 2y ago
> which is chomping at the bit to start a war in Taiwan to “contain” China. How do you start a war on allied territory to contain your enemy (that hasn't even invaded yet)? How is it exactly "containing"?
- ein0p 2y ago
  [flagged]
wumeow 2y ago
No, the US does not want to start a war in the country that it gets ~all of it’s advanced semiconductors from.
- twelve40 2y ago
  surely this semiconductor situation that gets tossed around is temporary and solvable in the long term?
EasyMark 2y ago
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.
- twelve40 2y ago
  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.

linearrust 2y ago

[flagged]

Xen9 2y ago

China has recently issued many joint statements with Russia, that show that they are in fact going to the opposite direction. For example: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/05/24/china-russia-joint-statement-new-era-75th-anniversary/ 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).

jmclnx 2y ago
>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.
- anal_reactor 2y ago
  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.
- Xen9 2y ago
  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.

m3kw9 2y ago

China can send all sorts of stuff to them that cannot be tracked. How does anyone track a plane loaded to the brim sent to Russia

dzhiurgis 2y ago
Even if it’s a Comac plane - by tracking GE’s avionics and RR’s engines via sat ew.

surfingdino 2y ago

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: https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-banks-reject-80-russian-082131174.html 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.

kkfx 2y ago

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.

tim333 2y ago

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 https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/13560

londons_explore 2y ago

Isn't $5m/month pretty much zero for nations the side of Russia and China?

IYasha 2y ago

I rarely comment, but I'm really tired of political articles on HN.

mediumsmart 2y ago

It’s not the despair, I can stand the despair. It’s the hope.