Car trouble: is a drop in China-Russia auto shipments a bad omen for trade?

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Car trouble: is a drop in China-Russia auto shipments a bad omen for trade?

As the geopolitical dynamics between China and Russia continue to shift amid attempts by the United States to bring Moscow out of Beijing’s orbit, analysts anticipate bilateral trade slowing down in the long run.

One prominent example, they said, can be found in Russia’s auto imports from China. These had surged over the past year – as Chinese manufacturers sought a market for their products out of the reach of Western tariffs and trade restrictions – but signs of weakness began to appear in October following Moscow’s increases to vehicle import taxes and recycling fees, as well as the devaluation of the rouble.

This trend continued in the first two months of 2025. Chinese customs figures showed that the trade value of passenger cars sent to Russia dropped 48.8 per cent to US$749.9 million year on year, and that of truck shipments plunged 87 per cent to US$40.8 million.

The segment’s decline was enough to drag the total trade turnover of both nations down to US$34.68 billion in the same period for a year-on-year decrease of 7.1 per cent. By comparison, China and Russia’s total trade broke annual records in 2024 with US$244.8 billion in turnover, spurred by Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Analysts said US President Trump’s involvement in negotiating a ceasefire with Ukraine could steer the previously rock-solid relationship between Beijing and the Kremlin in a new direction.

“I think the phase of rapid and active growth in trade turnover between China and Russia will indeed be frozen for a while,” said Aleksei Chigadaev, a former visiting lecturer with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

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