Ukraine crisis: How much trade does Russia do with China?
Image source, Getty ImagesAustralia has called on China to do more to isolate Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, and apply sanctions similar to those of the US, EU and the UK.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison criticised a recent deal China made to buy more wheat from Russia, saying it was throwing the country "an economic lifeline".
So how far could China help out Russia economically?
Will sanctions on Russia affect trade?
China says it will "continue to have normal trade co-operation" with Russia.
But some Russian banks have now been banned from the Swift international payment system. This is used around the world for financial transactions, and is likely to make paying for its exports more difficult.
As a result, China has recently had to cut back some of its purchases from Russia because traders have struggled to arrange financing.
In recent years, both countries have been making efforts to develop their own alternative payment systems to reduce their reliance on dollar-based systems like Swift.
Russia has its System for Transfer of Financial Messages (STFM) while China has the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), and these operate in their own currencies.
One study published by the Carnegie Moscow Center argues that these homegrown payment systems are "not an alternative to Swift".
Image source, Getty ImagesAs of 2021, only one Chinese bank had joined STFM, although more Russian banks and global financial institutions have connected to the Chinese system.
Currently only about 17% of trade between Russia and China uses the Chinese yuan (up from 3.1% in 2014), according to media reports citing official Russian statistics.
And their energy trade is mostly still done in US dollars, although they are increasingly using the yuan.
How much trade does Russia do with China?
Trade between the two has been growing steadily in recent years.
It hit a new high of almost $147bn (£110bn) last year - up nearly 36% from the previous year - and accounted for about 18% of Russia's overall trade in 2021.
During President Putin's visit to Beijing last month, the two countries said they would boost their trade to $250bn by 2024.
China's customs authorities announced the lifting of all restrictions on Russian wheat and barley imports the day the assault on Ukraine started.
It previously used to restrict wheat imports from certain areas of Russia because of disease concerns.
Last year, China was the world's fourth biggest buyer of wheat and the biggest buyer of barley, and Russia is a top producer of both grains.
Apart from agricultural products, China is also currently the single biggest market for Russian energy exports such as oil, gas and coal.
It is Russia's largest coal buyer, and the two countries agreed on a new deal worth more than $20bn - just a week before the Ukraine invasion.
However, as a bloc, the EU remains by far the biggest overall trading partner with Russia. In 2021, total trade between the two was worth almost twice as much as China's trade with Russia.
That could now start to change, according to trade economist Dr Rebecca Harding.
"It is inevitable that EU-Russia trade diminishes in the light of sanctions. The current crisis has just sharpened a focus within the EU on the need to diversify supply," she said.
Russia's trade with US is much smaller.
Could China buy more Russian energy?
Russia's economy relies heavily on exporting oil and gas, and the latest sanctions haven't so far targeted those sectors.
Last year, Russia was China's second-biggest oil supplier and third-biggest gas supplier, with exports reaching $41.1bn and $4.3bn respectively, according to media reports. Mr Putin recently unveiled new Russian oil and gas deals with China worth an estimated $117.5bn.
Image source, Getty ImagesHowever, Russia's biggest energy market by far is still the EU, and it supplies 40% of the bloc's gas and about 26% of its oil.
And with oil, the latest International Energy Agency (IEA) data show that last year, China accounted for just 20% of Russia's exports, with the majority of its oil going to Europe.
"Russian exports of oil and gas [to China] have been increasing at a rate of over 9% annually for the last five years. This is rapid growth but even so, China is half as big as the EU market for Russian oil," says Dr Harding.
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Germany, Russia's main export destination for natural gas, recently announced that it would suspend the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Supplies via a new pipeline agreed between Russia and China (the Power of Siberia 2) would have only a fifth of the capacity of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, according to one analysis.
Also, it's not clear when the new gas pipeline from Siberia will come on stream.
Over the longer term, China may want to boost imports of Russian gas to try to reduce its dependence on coal in order to meet targets for cutting greenhouse gases.
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