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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 impli
by 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 agoYes that’s what the article says
- baybal2 2y agoThe 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 agoWe've made it questionable.
- spywaregorilla 2y agoThat 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 agoLook, 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 agoThe point is trading with Russia threatens China’s trade with America. It is irrational for Beijing to condone it.
- topspin 2y agoThe Chinese understand plausible deniability.
- Modified3019 2y agoI 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 agoI'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 agoTrend 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 agoThis is the right answer.
- rekoros 2y agoI don’t fully understand the words you’ve used, but it feels that RU market is too small to justify building plants?
- maxglute 2y agoPRC selling RU machines (capital equipment) to build their own plants.
- nradov 2y agoThere 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 agoArticle 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 agoThat'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!