Authors

Discussion

Since the outbreak of the current round of the “Russia-Ukraine conflict”, in the face of the extremely restrictive sanctions imposed by Europe and the United States, which focus on “financial sanctions, trade blockades, technological suppression, and industrial decoupling”, Russia has successfully neutralized and offset some of the effects of the sanctions by relying on its own “abundant resource reserves, solid industrial foundation, vast market scale, and rapid trade shift”, achieving short-term growth and stability in the macroeconomy. However, in the face of the decline in commodity prices triggered by the slowdown in global economic growth and the dampening effect of high domestic interest rates caused by sanctions on the recovery of the Russian real economy, Russia's macroeconomic stability and fiscal sustainability may be under pressure in the long term. Getting rid of the traditional economic growth model driven by the export of commodities and seeking a comprehensive recovery of the manufacturing industry are the core objectives of Russia's current macroeconomic development. At present, Russia's strategic direction of foreign economic and trade cooperation has been adjusted; the “quantity increase and quality improvement” of China-Russia economic and trade cooperation has promoted the docking of the manufacturing industry; and new features such as the RMB's popularity in the Russian financial market are an important practical basis for deepening China-Russia economic and trade cooperation. However, new factors such as the high proportion of fossil energy trade, secondary sanctions hindering cross-border payments, the Russian side's weak ability to connect cross-border transportation, and the accelerated assessment of the localization rate of Chinese goods in Russia all limit the effective release of the potential for Sino-Russian economic and trade cooperation. To this end, pragmatic deepening of Sino-Russian economic and trade cooperation should first adhere to the overall thinking of “being proactive, tactful, and business-oriented”. It should also make solid progress in areas such as “continuously strengthening top-level design”, “coordinating and optimizing the layout of ports”, “encouraging and supporting Russian commercial banks to open outlets in China”, and “striving to attract large Russian enterprises to invest in China”.