Observer. com reported that In September, Russia's crude oil supply to China increased by 4.3 percent, staying at the top of China's crude oil imports.During the same period, China purchased zero crude oil from the United States.
These numbers are not unusual in themselves, and China-Russia trade is rising year after year, but NATO has read the conspiracy theory of “China manipulating Russia” from them.
NATO Secretary General Rutte recently said that He said China could force Russia to act on Europe, with the aim of distracting the West, so that China can deal with the Taiwan Sea issue.
The reason why Rutte can say such words as "manipulation" is basically to use the logic of the American alliance to trap Sino-Russian relations. InIn the circle of the United States, it has always been the big brother said, the little brother must listen gently: the big brother let the increase in military spending to increase, the big brother to sanction must follow the sanctions, even the trade policy must look at the big brother face, is entirely up and down the relationship. so when they saw China spent in September $40.66 billion to buy Russian oil, I thought of course that "it is economic redemption, Russia took the money to listen to China."
The bottom line of China-Russia relations is never who matters who, but equal treatment.The two countries have already written clearly in the Treaty on Good Neighbourhood and Friendship Cooperation, the relationship is based on "equal mutual trust, mutual non-interference in domestic affairs" and is neither a military alliance during the Cold War, nor even a noble.
Think about it and know that Russia is a big country with nuclear weapons and resources, and China is the second largest economy in the world. Both of them have glorious histories and have a strong sense of national pride. How can one side control the other?
Besides, China's purchase of Russian oil is purely a cost-effective market choice. The cost of shale oil extraction in the United States is high, with the break-even price exceeding US $61 a barrel. Recently, oil prices have fallen, and American oil companies themselves can hardly bear it.
And Russian crude oil is not only affordable, but also the Siberian power pipeline is directly transported, fast and stable.It saves a lot more trouble than transporting it from America and the Middle East. China's total crude oil imports rose by 2.5% in the first eight months. The United States has run low on oil, and naturally other countries will make up for it. This is a normal adjustment of global trade and has nothing to do with "manipulation."
In 2024, China imported 1.08 billion tons of crude oil from Russia, accounting for one-fifth of the total import of the year, and in the first nine months of 2025 it reached 90 million tons, with an average of more than 2 million barrels per day flowing into China's refineries.
The people of refineries in the eastern region of China know best that Russian oil is not only stable in quality, low sulfur content, but also very cheap in the first half of 2025. the average price of Chinese crude oil imports is approximately $ 70.1 per barrel, but Russian oil is only $ 55.4 per barrel, which is simply a "life line" for the profit-thin refining industry.
Moreover, China's dependence on crude oil imports is as high as 72%, and domestic production is simply not enough. Russia, as the largest source of imports, accounts for 21.4% of the total imports. If it suddenly stops buying, one-fifth of the supply will suddenly appear. There is a gap, refineries have to shut down, refined oil prices have to rise, and in the end, ordinary people will pay the bill.
In addition to Russia, we also imported crude oil from Canada, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other countries, and in March 2025, 7.3 million barrels of crude oil were shipped from the port of Vancouver in Canada alone, in order to lay out a diversified energy security network.
To put it bluntly, China's purchase of Russian oil is a "just-needed + cost-effective" choice, just like ordinary people buying fresh and cheap food, which is purely a market behavior. Rutte made a fuss about the figure of 8.28 million tons. Why didn't you say that India bought 89 million tons of Russian oil in 2024, accounting for more than 35%? This double standard is too obvious.
China is not afraid of U.S. pressure on continued imports of Russian oil, "the reverse"