Chinese President Xi Jinping conducted a state visit to Russia on March 21.This is his first visit after he re -elected the President of the State in March this year, and after 2013, after 2013, Russia once again took Russia as the first visit to the president of the country.In the past 10 years, the friendship and closeness of Sino -Russian relations can be seen.
Since China and Russia established strategic cooperation partnerships in 1996, the international community is generally not optimistic about this bilateral relationship.They believe that Sino -Russian relations are just "forced friendship" under external pressure. The endogenous motivation is not strong and it is difficult to last."Political Heat Cold" is regarded as the main manifestation of the "morbidity" of Sino -Russian relations.The Treaty of China -Russia's good -neighborly and friendly cooperation in 2001 determined the peaceful concept of strategic collaboration partnership between the two countries and the "friendship of generations and never the enemy".In 2019, China -Russia's renewal period was an effective period of 20 years, and the relationship between the two countries was upgraded to a comprehensive strategic collaboration partnership between the new era. At that time, the Sino -Russian trade volume exceeded $ 100 billion (about S $ 136 billion).In 2022, the Sino -Russian trade reached a record 190 billion US dollars.This year, the two countries announced that "China -Russia's new era of comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership has reached the highest level of history and continues to develop."
Since 2019, China -Russia relations have begun to change qualitatively.Xi Jinping's visit to Russia marked the transformation of relations between the two countries.
First, the economic and trade foundation of China -Russia relations is unprecedentedly solid.From 1996 to 2019, Sino -Russian relations have generally gone through three stages from "political heat" to "political fever" to "political thermal Jingwen".During the period, the political relations between China and Russia have maintained a stable and high -level state, while economic and trade relations have continued to heat up.From 2019 to the present, China -Russia's economic and trade relations have entered a rapid development stage, reaching 190 billion US dollars in 2022, with an amazing 34.3%of the amazing growth rate.Russia is already the eighth largest trading partner country in China (the top seven are the United States, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Germany, Australia and Malaysia).In the first quarter of this year, Sino -Russian trade increased by 38.7%to US $ 53.845 billion.If the remaining three quarters of this year maintain this growth rate, China -Russia's trade will easily exceed the US $ 200 billion mark, and Russia will jump into China's fourth largest trading partner country.
In addition, China and Russia are still actively exploring other economic and trade cooperation.In February this year, Russia proposed to develop the Black Blind Island with China. Once this economic and trade cooperation project successfully landed, it will promote the development of other more magnificent economic projects in China and Russia.
Second, Sino -Russian financial cooperation is unprecedentedly deepened.Prior to 2022, Western countries such as the United States had sanctioned Russia's financial sanctions, no matter how bold, optimistic, and crazy, they did not dare to imagine that the RMB would become the largest currency in Russia in February this year.According to the Moscow Exchange data, in February this year, the US dollar and RMB transactions were 1420 billion rubles (about S $ 23.1 billion) and 1480 billion rubles, respectively. The RMB transaction volume exceeded the US dollar for the first time.Similarly, in the total Russian foreign exchange transactions, the share of RMB increased significantly to 40%, slightly higher than the US dollar accounting for 38%, which was far higher than the euro accounted for 21.2%.
In February 2022, the US dollar accounted for 87.6%, the euro accounted for 11.9%, and the yuan accounted for only 0.32%.In the next few months, it is expected that the RMB trade share in Russia will continue to increase.Obviously, this is the result of Russia's sanctions on Western countries since the Russia -Ukraine War, the result of the sanctions of Western countries and adjusting its asset allocation.
At present, the renminbi does not deliberately pursue internationalization. However, under the international environment in the world that the world is afraid of the abuse of financial sanctions in the United States, China will naturally not miss the great opportunity of the RMB internationalization to prevent from time to time.The strategic complementarity of China and Russia in the financial field has enabled the two countries to improve the level of financial cooperation. In bilateral trade, investment, loans, and other economic and trade exchanges, it adapts to the steady proportion of the market for marketing.
Third, the trade structure of the two countries continues to optimize.In 2022, Western sanctions against Russia were unprecedented, and Russia's needs and quantities of Chinese goods have undergone tremendous changes.According to statistics, more than 1,000 companies withdrew from the Russian market due to Western sanctions, mainly manufacturing and electronic products, and Chinese products quickly filled this gap.After Mercedes -Benz withdrew from the Russian market, the Red Flag is expected to replace it.The share of Chinese cars in Russia's new car market increased from 10%to 38%last year.Chinese brands such as Li Ning and Anta replaced Western counters such as Adidas and Nike.Among the Russian electrical malls, Qing Yixi is Chinese brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, and vivo.The comprehensive optimization of the Sino -Russian trade structure prompted Xi Jinping's visit to Russia, and the two countries signed the key development plan for China -Russia economic cooperation before 2030.
In short, since 2013, China and Russia have maintained friendly and stable comprehensive strategic collaboration partnerships. Energy is still the core content of economic and trade relations between the two countries.Increasing and rapid optimization of the economic and trade structure.China -Russia relations have completed the transformation of "political heat".
The transformation process of China -Russia relations is too short, and the international community is affected by the cognitive inertia. It has not realized that Sino -Russian relations have passed the old stage of "forced friendship"."Political heat" in the new period.
The author Guo Bingyun is an associate professor of Sichuan University of Foreign Languages, and Qin Hong is studying graduate students
