Exports of Chinese-made computer-controlled milling machines, or CNC benches, to Russia increased sharply following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Chinese CNC benches now account for the lion’s share of imports of these machines for both civil and military use. industries in Russia.
Before the spring of 2022, Russia imported most of the CNC benches from European Union countries. Now the situation has changed. If in February 2022 Russia imported such machines from China worth 6.5 million dollars, in July 2023 the import of CNC benches from China has already reached 68 million dollars.
The data comes from Russian customs declaration statistics. In percentage terms, the share of Chinese machines in the Russian market increased from 12% to 57%. Furthermore, the import of CNC benches produced in Taiwan and South Korea into Russia continued, writes the Financial Times.
Last November, the United States imposed broad sanctions on all major importers of Russian CNC benches. Now Chinese and other manufacturers who continue to export such machines to Russia risk so-called US secondary sanctions against them.
At the same time, some Chinese producers may continue to export to Russia because they are linked to the Chinese military and therefore still risk sanctions in the future, if US-China relations deteriorate due to, for example, the Taiwan issue.
Furthermore, the United States is in no rush to impose sanctions against Chinese companies, again because the imposition of such sanctions could no longer be used to influence China if relations deteriorated.
According to a study by the Finnish Central Bank think tank, since 2021 the price of goods from China with potential military purposes for Russia has increased by an average of 78%. Over the same period, export prices of the same Chinese goods to other countries increased by only 12%.
Beijing says it neither exports lethal weapons to Russia nor supports the Kremlin’s war effort against Ukraine. At the same time, Chinese authorities criticize Western sanctions against Russia. Trade between China and Russia has grown dramatically since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, reaching $200 billion last year.
Computerized milling machines are used in the metal industry to produce complex parts with high precision and consistent quality, which is why they find particular application in the military industry.
These are large machines, which are more difficult to smuggle into Russia in violation of sanctions, as happened, for example, with chips.
However, so far analysts have not observed the widespread use of Chinese CNC benches in Russian military factories in propaganda videos released by Russian authorities. So far only benches of European, Taiwanese, South Korean and Japanese origin have been seen in the footage.
It is possible that the Russian military industry lacks confidence in the quality of Chinese production, or that factories face difficulties in integrating machines purchased from new suppliers into existing production processes.
2024-01-02 18:36:00
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