this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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chapotraphouse
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The special measure they took was to ignore western edict on cutting trade with Russia. That was literally the deciding factor in this war.
The PRC did not ignore the sanctions. Some of the trade did get shut down because of the sanctions.
On the other hand, NATO didn't completely stop trading with Russia. Does that mean that NATO also contributed to the war effort against itself and should be thanked for that?
Yeah they very much ignored the sanctions, particularly on oil and gas, as well as on exporting high tech to Russia. If you genuinely can't see the difference between NATO trade with Russia and China there's really no point continuing this discussion.
They didn't, and I'm not sure why you keep claiming this. In particular, PRC's banks are often mentioned as refusing to work with Russia because of the sanctions.
What I am trying to understand is what you meant when you said that the PRC didn't just sit this one out. So far, you have only mentioned trade that was already happening instead of being some sort of special measure done to support Russia in the war, and which the PRC has also been conducting with NATO (and the PRC seems to have mostly been trading with NATO). This trade also most likely benefits the PRC much more, as Russia is a semi-peripheral state that relies on exporting natural resources (rather than manufacturing and using or exporting finished goods).
If your claim to the PRC supposedly taking an active part in this war was by doing what it was already doing (trading with Russia on better terms than NATO's), then it's fair to conclude that the PRC opted to stand by and let things happen (especially considering that it did let its companies refuse to deal with Russia on the basis of the sanctions). Considering that the PRC trades more with NATO than with Russia, by your logic we could conclude that the PRC has been helping NATO this whole time - including in the context of this war.
Give substantial examples of how China followed western sanctions. The fact that you just keep doubling down on this is frankly incredible. Talk to anybody in Russia and you'll see whether they think China helped or not. Why do you think this might be happening? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/world/europe/drifting-from-the-wests-orbit-russians-find-a-new-role-model-in-china.html
I've explained to you precisely what I meant already multiple times. The fact that you're trying to create some sort of equivalence between trade with China which went up by hundreds of billions and remaining trade with NATO is truly incredible.
It's not, and Russia never asked PRC to do this. I'm not sure why you'd even suggest that they should be taking an active part in this war.
I've already addressed this earlier. PRC provides Russia with technology that it would not be accessible to Russia otherwise. For example, practically all cars are imported from China at this point, and that's just one example. The whole point of NATO sanctions was to cut Russia off from tech it needs. China prevented this from happening.
Didn't expect to engage in an argument on this matter, so I will need some time to dig up something more serious than stuff like this:
https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2023/05/how-sanctions-have-changed-the-face-of-chinese-companies-in-russia?lang=en
https://www.rbc.ru/business/17/04/2024/661f4a3c9a7947ce48d663ca
This does seem to have been going since at least 2014, as well:
https://tass.com/economy/751008
Notably, I didn't say anything like this about your inability to substantiate your blindly optimistic claims, but if you want to escalate, sure, I can bite back. Are you sure you want to keep escalating?
Well, I would have said that I'm in luck due to where I live, but out of the people in my social vicinity, I'm overwhelmingly likely the most informed one by far (and likely the only socialist). Notably, I first heard about PRC's companies refusing to work with Russia because of sanctions from Russian communists.
The answer(s) to that seem to include things like the following: Russia's bid to join NATO has failed, NATO's attempts at cutting Russia off have been more successful domestically and less successful in the PRC which - due to having nukes and an economy which NATO depends on - is a lot harder for NATO to threaten, Russia has no serious consumer electronics and other relevant industries to speak of (and has no way of developing them without either losing access to relevant goods from the PRC that will be of higher quality, or having to compete with those higher-quality goods from the PRC while at a massive disadvantage) which means that it is highly dependent on the PRC, and so on, and so forth.
Notably, though, the PRC has been trading more with NATO than with Russia, NATO (including Ukraine, to my knowledge) has also not abandoned trade with Russia completely, and the PRC has not ignored the sanctions.
If it's just trade, then you have to contend with the fact that it was happening either way, and the PRC both trades with NATO much more than with Russia and also refuses to rid NATO of access to important resources. This is rather clearly a case of the PRC standing by.
You did say that you are confident that the PRC did not just 'stand by' during this war, but aided Russia:
Either the PRC did take Russia's side and took action to aid Russia against NATO, or the PRC did not take any relevant action. If the 'action' in question is just trading, then you have to contend with the fact that the PRC trades more with NATO and refuses to remove NATO's access to relevant resources.
Notably, the PRC also provides NATO with resources and technologies, and relevant trade happens in greater volume there.
Also, Russia being forced to import things because it has no relevant industries to speak of has been the reality for decades now. An actually helpful move would be assisting Russia in developing those industries (which won't happen because that would hurt the PRC's ability to export things).
The whole point was to hurt Russia's economy. A complete cutting off from relevant technologies wouldn't have ever happened.
In terms of hurting Russia's economy, the sanctions seem to have been (at least partially) successful, as Russia has been suffering from high inflation.
Yeah that's just not as exciting as you seem to think it is. Some companies in China do trade with the west and don't want to lose that. That doesn't change the fact that China actively supported Russian war effort. Don't take my word for it though. Here's an interview with a Russian drone developer who says that China has been quietly allowing mass shipments of drones and supporting tech into Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmfNUM2CbbM
I'm not sure what you want me to substantiate here, the numbers speak for themselves https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/01/13/china-russia-trade-hit-record-high-in-2024-a87590
You can bite back, but you can't seem to produce a coherent argument.
In other words, China is filling the gaps left by the west and ensuring that Russian economy keeps functioning without taking any major hit as a result of sanctions.
Again, not sure why you think this is some sort of a gotcha.
And I've provided concrete examples of that happening which resulted in trade jumping astronomically between Russia and China throughout the course of the war.
I'm honestly not sure what you'd be expecting China to do that would qualify as not standing by in your mind.
That very obviously did not happen, and China was the main reason for that.
Ah yes, just look at all the suffering from high inflation. The World Bank just reclassified Russia as a high income country https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/world-bank-country-classifications-by-income-level-for-2024-2025
Meanwhile, the IMF forecasts that Russian economy is set to grow faster than all the western economies https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/17/russia-forecast-to-grow-faster-than-advanced-economies-in-2024-imf.html
The reality is that Russia provides a shield for China in the west. Despite what you might think, Chinese are not imbeciles, and they realize that they need a stable and functioning Russia to prevent being surrounded from the west and cut off from critical resources. Hence why China is actively supporting Russia and ensuring their economy stays stable.
So, did the PRC take any action to prevent companies from refusing to trade with Russia because of the sanctions? Or were there no such initiatives and it was all left to the companies to make the decisions based on the profit motive?
How did the PRC actively support the Russian war effort? There don't seem to have been any initiatives by the PRC to support Russia in the war, only the trade that would have been happening either way (with Russia being forced to find more export deals while being in a weaker position to negotiate in the case of how things have turned out).
I haven't had the time to finish the video, but if we believe the word of this capitalist, then we must also arrive to conclusions like:
It does seem believable that the PRC doesn't restrict trade relevant to the Russian weapon supply much, but the PRC also doesn't seem to do much in terms of these restrictions against NATO, so Russia is not favoured here, and, again, not seeing any war-related initiatives.
That the PRC has taken an action to support Russia in this war. Continuing 'business as usual' is not something that I would associate with taking an active part to support Russia.
Cool. Now, compare those with PRC-NATO trade numbers and explain what initiatives the PRC took to support Russia.
Oh, we are escalating. Cool.
Well, firstly, I wasn't making an argument - not initially, at least, - I was asking a question about what you meant (because what you said seemed - and still does seem - to be just copium), so you need to do something about your reading comprehension and being offended over your inability to explain what you mean and back your claims.
Secondly, you are yet to point to any initiatives that the PRC took to support Russia in this war.
This is laughable. The PRC gets to receive cheap resources from Russia, with Russia being more disadvantaged now, and the Russian economy still takes significant hits from the sanctions.
This isn't a charity - the PRC benefits from Russia's weaker trading position.
So, the PRC trading with Russia is magically the PRC actively supporting Russia in the war, but the PRC also trading with NATO in much higher volumes is not the PRC actively supporting NATO?
'Business as usual' is not a 'concrete example' of actively supporting Russia in the war. Hell, the PRC is taking action to keep trading with NATO.
'Astronomically' is an obvious overstatement, and this rise is already seemingly dead. This rise in trade has also been just a simple rerouting of resource extraction, Russia becoming even weaker economically than prior to the sanctions, and with the PRC not taking action (that I'm aware of) to help Russia long-term.
For example, providing Russia with personnel and materiel, or joining the war officially, or taking action to restart relevant industries in Russia (which, again, I have mentioned, and I have mentioned that the PRC would never do this while having an economy that features the profit motive), or sanctioning NATO, or just restricting its own trade with NATO (especially when it comes to antimony and rare earths).
'Oh silly you and everybody else who complains about things like inflation, including inflation of primary-needs goods that came with the sanctions and has been high ever since, none of that happened and it's just a mass hallucination, even when the (lower estimate) stats are easily available online'.
This is extremely silly. You probably also believe that $2 extreme poverty thing. All that the World Bank says there is just that Russia has a high GNI by their estimates, and an apparent major contributor to Russia's rise in that regard is 'military related activity', which doesn't (directly) help reproduce labour and expand an economy.
I suppose, not even that is going to last for long, considering that the government has been speaking about 'cooling down' the economy, with the minister of economic development speaking about a coming recession during the latest St. Petersburg International Economic Forum session.
It predicted that for 2024. It is 2025 now.
Additionally, the inflation has not disappeared, the government is speaking about the slowing down of the economy, and we are probably going into a recession soon.
I don't. I never claimed that the actions of the PRC were dumb or anything like that. I even explained why I don't expect them to take some of the actions that I mentioned.
The PRC, however, has been taking actions that are beneficial to the PRC first and foremost. The government of the PRC doesn't show any interest in upsetting the status quo of NATO's colonial exploitation of the rest of the world, and the actions that it has been taking have been apparently aimed at keeping the PRC a beneficiary of that.
They didn't need to do that. In case you didn't realize it, China is a country of 1.4 billion people, and there are plenty of companies available that can trade with Russia at any given time.
The video I linked, which you didn't have time to finish, gives concrete examples of that. He explains how China is intentionally turning a blind eye to military exports to Russia which they're officially not doing. It's incredible to me that people can be so naive to think that everything Russia and China are doing is done publicly.
Oh weird, I guess I was imagining these things happening
China cut off drone sales, critical supplies of explosives, and rare earth minerals that make it effectively impossible for NATO to produce modern weapons.
An interesting way to say massively increasing trade with Russia, while cutting the west off critical things they need to produce drones and artillery shells.
Well I just did that above where I gave you links to the restrictions PRC putting on NATO that are directly impacting NATO military production.
I've given you plenty of examples, but you simple hand wave them away without actually providing examples of what it is you expect China to be doing.
Nobody suggested it was a charity, and it's laughable to claim that it should be.
I mean what you say here is demonstrably false as I've already explained above.
I love how you're just making things up at this point.
For starters, Russia never asked China to join the war or restart relevant industries. Not clear what these are given that Russia is currently outproducing NATO by a large margin. Meanwhile, there are plenty of clear examples of China restricting trade with NATO, I gave you three of them above.
Sounds to me like you're just upset that China didn't start WW3, because taking the actions you suggest would certainly be a good way to go about doing it. I, for one, am glad that Chinese leadership understands the stakes here we're not dying in a nuclear holocaust right now. There is absolutely no rational reason for PRC to enter the war directly or to start provoking NATO further, but if that's what you want then yeah that explains why you think China is not helping Russia.
Who is everybody exactly? Do you even know anybody living in Russia?
I followed the forum, do point out where they say recession is happening. I've heard these predictions non stop for the past three years, and it's incredible that people still keep regurgitating this nonsense.
Here's what things are looking like in the real world https://archive.ph/I8wrK
LMFAO they are not talking about going to a recession.
That's literally the argument you keep trying to make here because they would have to be complete imbeciles to allow Russia to fail against the west. Anybody with even a minimally functioning brain can understand that it would be a disaster for China.
If you understand that PRC is taking actions that are beneficial to them then you should also recognize that ensuring Russia is politically and economically stable is at the top of the list for PRC.
If the PRC didn't do anything, then the PRC stood by.
Okay, so the PRC did not undertake any initiatives, and it was just trade as usual, it seems.
Can you provide at least one timestamp? I am busy, tired, and probably sick these days, and I don't want to dedicate too much time that I could spend on my studies on a capitalist talking about how great private companies are at innovation for what, 40+ minutes?
If the PRC actually supplied Russia with weapons, sure (even though that's a very different thing from what you initially pointed to). What are those weapons, and why haven't I heard about them? Or are we talking specifically about components and resources that are used in manufacturing weapons in Russia, in which case the PRC also supplies NATO with those.
Yeah, this counts, but this does come very late into the war, and is very different from what you pointed to previously.
My bad. I must have mixed up the PRC going back on its other restrictions during the recent deal with the genocidal hegemon.
The PRC has made an agreement with NATO to go back on restrictions on rare earths exports.
I'll believe it when I see NATO stop being able to produce modern weapons instead of using them to enact genocides and colonial reconquest.
Given that the former comes naturally from Russia having to find another export destination while being in a weaker position to negotiate, and the PRC has already gone back on some of the latter, that's not a way to say that, interesting or not.
And forgot the recent agreements to go back on some of that. And also only provided those links or pointed to those things after escalating for no good reason.
Not until your latest comment. Up until then it was 'the PRC has been doing business as usual with Russia, at a much lower volume than it has been doing with NATO, so it clearly took an action to support Russia'
I guess it is laughable that there should be cooperation between states outside the imperial core that would involve long-term solutions and be in any way comparable to what the USSR has done.
I love it how you can look at things like inflation (even just general, and not inflation of primary-needs goods) and think that it's all made up. I would have loved to live in your fantasy world.
I also love how you seriously cited the 'high-income country' thing earlier. That was hilarious.
For starters, what the compradors in Russia asked or didn't ask the PRC to do in this regard is irrelevant, as the PRC is in a position to coerce them.
So, you look at a semi-peripheral state the industries of which were destroyed in the 90s and which has been reliant on selling cheap resources and labour (while, admittedly, still having a periphery of its own and still having favourable unequal exchange with some of the countries outside of the imperial core, so Russia isn't in the worst position out there) and on importing expensive finished goods, and can't see a problem? Really?
But also, I would prefer to live in the fantasy world where Russia outproduces the entirety of NATO by a large margin in areas like electronics and industrial equipment.
Which you only managed to point to after flipping out for no good reason and insisting that the PRC trading with Russia means that the PRC actively supports Russia in the war (even though there has been apparently neither a policy change nor any sort of action taken by the PRC in this regard), while the PRC trading with NATO is magically not counted as support for NATO. And forgot about the PRC also going back on some of those restrictions, and about some of those restrictions being very recent.
But sure, I do admit that I made a mistake with antimony. Let's hope that restriction stays in place.
I can just as well accuse you of trying to invent a fantasy where your preconceived conclusions hold true, such as in the cases of the sanctions magically not hurting Russia and the PRC never being in the wrong (hopefully, you are still not creative enough to come up with claims like 'the PRC siding with NATO against the USSR and helping plunge the world into the neo-colonial hell that we are witnessing today was good and awesome'), and that you want for nothing to be done about NATO's colonialism.
Except for ending the conflict more quickly and with lower cost in lives.
NATO doesn't exactly need a provocation to do things. It will come and destroy more of the world while the PRC stands by.
Ой, прошу прощения, вы правы. Никого не знаю, никого на улицах и на работе не встречаю, никого со школ и с университетов - включая учителей - не знаю, живу в городе-призраке с нулевым населением. Даже меня там нет.
The minister of economic development says that at around the 25:30 mark
https://youtu.be/Qtt9RFshDNc?t=1521
Are you saying that Reshetnikov or other people responsible for the Russian economy have been making these predictions for the past three years?
Oh, look. Russian compradors continuing to sell off cheap resources instead of finished goods.
Well, you need to do something about your auditory comprehension now that you have been pointed to the minister of economic development talking about a recession.
You also need to do something about your reading comprehension. I have already said that the actions of the PRC are not 'dumb'. They are, however, neither altruistic, nor (in the case of the things that you were pointing out previously - I do admit a mistake regarding antimony, and the recent restriction on selling drones does count, even though it came very late) indicative of the PRC actively supporting Russia in the war.
Well, one could have argued the same in the case of the PRC and the USSR, and yet, here we are.
But also, the PRC can afford Russia to go into crises that would weaken it and make trade with Russia even more advantageous to the PRC just fine, so long as it does not get couped by NATO.
Ensuring Russia's economic stability is likely not something that the PRC is concerned about, as that could mean an even better, even more dependent source of cheap resources.
Ensuring long-term economic stability in Russia would mean stuff like restarting Russia's industries and getting rid of the economic inequality (which can only be done temporarily under capitalism), which the PRC doesn't really care about, either.
Keeping Russia politically stable? Sure.
second part since I ran over the comment size limit.
Nobody is claiming PRC is being altruistic here. What I actually said was that it would not be in left interest of China to let Russia fail. Therefore, they will provide support when and where it's actually needed.
That's something PRC is extremely concerned about because the alternative could be Balkanization of Russia, which would allow the US to start surrounding China with puppet states in the west and to cut China off from critical resources such as food and energy that they get from Russia currently.
This is literally what the war in Ukraine is all about. The US hasn't even been hiding it. Read this National Interest article as an example, it spells it out in black and white https://nationalinterest.org/feature/strategy-avoiding-two-front-war-192137
RAND also published a whole study on why the US needs to break Russia before taking on China https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR3000/RR3063/RAND_RR3063.pdf
It's obvious that Chinese understand this as well and they see a stable Russia as a matter of their own national security. In fact, they've just openly stated this https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316875/china-tells-eu-it-cannot-afford-russian-loss-ukraine-war-sources-say
Long term political stability is not possible without a sound economic foundation. Surely, I don't have to explain the concept of base and superstructure...
I've repeatedly explained specifically what they did and provided examples. You seem to be trying to create a false dichotomy between PRC actively starting WW3 and anything else being standing by. It's an infantile way to look at things.
It's not, and again I'll refer you to the video. I've gone through the trouble of pulling out the exact quote below.
It's at 00:13:33.839
Why do you assume that China and Russia would be publicly announcing what China supplies to Russia?
Except, as the links I've provided in the last reply show, China is actively cutting access to these components for the west.
How is that different from what I pointed to previously?
Antimony restrictions predate the trade war.
Only partially, the restrictions on military suppliers still stand.
That's literally happening right now and it's all over the news. NATO openly admits they're not able to produce weapons and ammunition at the rate they're using them.
You keep repeating that PRC has gone back on some of this, what specifically have they gone back on. Last I checked, the trade is only increasing. Meanwhile, whether it comes naturally or not is entirely besides the point. China is acting as a key stabilizing factor for Russian economy.
I simply assumed you did at least cursory googling on the subject you're so passionate to argue about.
I can't help but notice that USSR isn't around anymore. Have you considered that there might be a different approach that is more effective, such as the one China is currently pursuing?
If by living in a fantasy world you mean engaging with reality then sure. The fact that these predictions of an economic crisis in Russia have been going on for three years and the opposite is happening is not giving you any pause evidently.
Ah yes, Russian sovereignty doesn't matter, and PRC should've been coercing them into what exactly?
So, you look at a state that has more industrial strength than all of NATO and write the above. Keep the bangers coming!
But also maybe spend a bit of time learning about the subjects you attempt to debate?
I didn't flip anything. This was my position from the start. You're the one trying to make the nonsensical argument that either China enters the war directly or they're not providing support.
It's pretty obvious that the sanctions are hurting the west, particularly Europe, far more than they are hurting Russia. Meanwhile, Russia is strengthening ties with the global south and we're now seeing a whole new economy developing entirely outside western control.
If China entered the war directly then it would be almost certain that NATO would do the same. At that point we'd be almost certainly looking at a nuclear holocaust. The fact that you haven't considered this obvious risk clearly shows that you haven't thought about this at all.
Yes they do, NATO countries still have to deal with internal politics and growing domestic unrest. The whole narrative in the west has been that Russia is weak and it's struggling in Ukraine in some sort of a stalemate. That makes it very difficult to justify direct intervention which every poll shows would be highly unpopular. In a scenario where China was fighting on the side of Russia, it would be far easier to drum up reasons why the west has to go all in.
Ну и что я тоже по русски говорю, тебя это експерем по экономики не делает.
Говорит что на грани, все зависит от решений, он хочет снизить ставки. Этот разговор продолжается уже два года.
Indeed I am, there's been a debate about whether to lower rates or not going on since pretty much the start of the war. Some people are worried that the economy is overheating and they want to keep the rates up, others like him keep talking about a recession if the rates don't come down. It's literally nothing new.
China is hardly going to import finished goods from Russia given that they're the main industrial hub in the world. However, these things are happening as well. https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2024/07/15/how-the-ukraine-war-is-reviving-russias-rust-belt/
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: