China trumpets rising car exports to Russia as its envoy holds talks in Ukraine
The IndependentFor free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. As a Chinese envoy crisscrossed Europe for talks on ending the war, his boss, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, trumpeted a sharp rise in China-Russia trade — which the West sees as providing an economic lifeline to Moscow that undermines the sanctions it has imposed to try to pressure Russia to withdraw from Ukraine. “Russian natural gas has entered thousands of households in China, and Chinese cars are driving in the streets of Russia, which fully demonstrates the strong resilience and broad prospects of mutually beneficial cooperation,” Wang said at an annual news conference on Thursday. “We are opposed to any attempt to blame China or to shift the responsibility of resolving the Ukraine crisis to China,” Wang, the foreign minister, said last month at the Munich Security Conference in Germany. More than 900,000 vehicles were exported to Russia in 2023, far exceeding the 415,000 to Mexico, the second largest market, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said last week, citing Chinese customs data.