Fewer Cars, Cheaper Oil: China's Trade with Russia, 2020-2025

1. Summary

According to the General Administration of Customs of China, trade between China and Russia fell 6.9% in 2025, to $228.1 billion. It was the first fall since 2020. China's exports to Russia fell 10.4%, to $103.3 billion, and its imports from Russia fell 3.9%, to $124.8 billion. Vehicles explain almost all of the fall in exports: they dropped from $25.5 billion to $13.1 billion. On the import side, oil, gas and coal fell by $16.3 billion, while metals and ores rose. Russia has not published its own trade by country since 2022.

2. Main results

1. Trade fell 6.9% in 2025, to $228.1 billion, after a record $244.8 billion in 2024.
2. China's exports of vehicles to Russia fell from $25.5 billion to $13.1 billion, a drop almost as large as the fall in all its exports to Russia.
3. China's imports of oil, gas and coal from Russia fell 17%, to $78.7 billion. They still made up 63% of everything China bought from Russia.
4. China's trade with Kazakhstan grew 11% in the same year, to $48.7 billion.

3. Trade by year

Balance is China's exports minus China's imports; a negative figure means Russia sold China more than it bought. Sources: GACC, table (2), 2025; table (2), 2024; GACC archive.

Trade more than doubled between 2020 and 2024, from $107.8 billion to $244.8 billion, and most of the growth came in 2022 and 2023. China buys more from Russia than it sells: the gap was $21.5 billion in 2025. In 2025 Russia accounted for 3.6% of China's foreign trade.

4. Structure of trade, 2025

China sells Russia mainly machinery, electrical equipment and vehicles, which together made up 53% of its exports to Russia in 2025. It buys mainly fuel: oil, gas and coal were 63% of its imports from Russia. The pattern is the same as in Kazakhstan's trade with China, on a larger scale.

5. What changed in 2025

HS chapters from GACC tables (15) and (16). Sources: GACC, table (15), 2025; GACC, table (16), 2025; tables (15) and (16), 2024. 2021 shown for vehicles, machinery and fuel only.

China's vehicle exports to Russia grew six times between 2021 and 2024, from $4.3 billion to $25.5 billion, and then fell by almost half in 2025. The fall of $12.4 billion is about the same as the fall in all China's exports to Russia, $12.2 billion. Machinery, the largest export group, was almost unchanged.

On the import side, the value of oil, gas and coal fell by $16.3 billion. Imports of ores, aluminium and copper rose by more than 50% each, which kept the overall fall in imports to 3.9%.

6. Comparison with Kazakhstan

Change in 2025 as published by GACC. Source: GACC, table (2), 2025.

China's trade with Kazakhstan is about a fifth of its trade with Russia, but it has grown faster since 2020 and kept growing in 2025. For both neighbours China sells manufactured goods and buys raw materials.

7. A note on the data

This brief uses one set of statistics. Russia's Federal Customs Service stopped publishing trade by partner country in 2022 (Free Policy Briefs), so Chinese figures cannot be checked against Russian ones, as they were for Kazakhstan in an earlier brief. Chinese data show where goods were declared to go, not where they were finally used.

8. Author's comment

I am not an expert on Russia, so I will only say what these numbers mean to me. The fall in car exports shows how fast trade with China can change: in three years Russia went from buying $4 billion of Chinese vehicles to $25 billion, and then half of that disappeared in one year. Russia now sells China mostly oil, gas and coal. This is the same weakness I wrote about in Kazakhstan's trade with China, only on a larger scale. For Kazakhstan I see a lesson and a chance. The lesson is not to depend on one big buyer for our raw materials. The chance is that Kazakhstan sits between China and Russia, so a good transport network can earn money from their trade, whatever happens to it.

Methodology

• All figures are China's customs data (General Administration of Customs of China, GACC), Monthly Bulletin, December issue of each year: table (2) for totals, tables (15) and (16) for product groups by HS chapter.
• Values are converted from US$ thousand to US$ billion. Growth rates for totals are those published by GACC, which compares with revised data for the previous year, so they can differ slightly from a calculation on the figures shown. Growth by product and the comparison with Kazakhstan are calculated by the author.
• Russia's Federal Customs Service stopped publishing trade by partner country in 2022, so this brief uses one source only. Chinese data record goods by country of origin and destination and may differ from what Russia would report.

Sources

1. General Administration of Customs of China, Monthly Bulletin, table (2) Imports and Exports by Country (Region) of Origin/Destination, December 2025
2. General Administration of Customs of China, Monthly Bulletin, table (2), December 2024
3. General Administration of Customs of China, Monthly Bulletin, table (15) Exports by Selected Countries (Regions) and by HS Divisions, December 2025
4. General Administration of Customs of China, Monthly Bulletin, table (16) Imports by Selected Countries (Regions) and by HS Divisions, December 2025
5. General Administration of Customs of China, Monthly Bulletin, tables (15) and (16), December 2024
6. General Administration of Customs of China, Monthly Bulletin, archive of tables for 2020-2025
7. Free Policy Briefs (FREE Network), Russia's Data Warfare (April 2023)

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