In the first half of 2023, the mutual trade exchange between China and the USA registered a decline of 14.5 percent. On the contrary, Russian-Chinese trade is growing from year to year.
Chinese Customs Administration (Gacc) released preliminary results of overseas Chinese trade for the first half of the year. In the period January-June 2023, compared with the same period of the previous year, the mutual trade exchange between China and the United States decreased by 14.5%, falling to $327 billion. This decline particularly impacted US exports to China that are down 17.9%, even though they still reached $239 billion. Chinese exports to the US also fell, but much less: in the first half of 2023, Beijing exported goods and services to America for $87.9 billion (-3.7%).
On the other hand, the mutual trade exchange between China and Russia has increased dramatically – in the first half of the year it registered an additional 40.6%, reaching $114.5 billion. According to Chinese customs, this was a new historical record. In the indicated period, bilateral trade was quite balanced: China sold goods and services to Russia worth $52.3 billion (+78.1%), while Russia’s exports to China amounted to $62.3 billion (+19.4%). Russian-Chinese trade is growing from year to year against the backdrop of a sharp decline in Moscow’s mutual trade exchange with Western countries due to anti-Russian sanctions and a mutual embargo imposed by the Kremlin in 2014. Last year, Russian-Chinese trade was worth $190 billion, while a new record of over $200 billion is expected in 2023. The goal of $250 billion per year was set at the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin on February 4, 2022.