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"The so-called limitless friendship between China and Russia never really existed—and it certainly does not exist now during wartime," remarked Tim Rühlig in Süddeutsche Zeitung (n German). The article examines how China has become economically indispensable to Moscow following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Tim recently explored the dependence gap between the two countries in his scrollytelling Analysis, which shows that China reacts quickly when supporting Russia becomes economically disadvantageous. An example of that is when Chinese dual-use exports to Russia fell temporarily after the sanctions packages in 2022 and 2023—before rising again later. "Trade data probably reveal only part of the real trade flows," remarked Tim, "but since China officially denies exporting dual-use goods even though they appear in customs data, the trends are likely reliable."