The paper examines the trade relations between Russia and China through the prism of modern transformation processes in the global economy. The analysis carried out in this paper has shown that the historically established model of cooperation, where Russia has been assigned the role of a supplier of raw materials and China as a producer of finished products, is now becoming a source of structural risks for our country. The indicators of trade relations between the two countries for 2023-2025 indicate the dominance of fuel and energy resources and low-value products in Russian exports. The price conditions of Russian exports of raw materials against the background of falling world prices do not contribute to the growth of budget revenues and consolidate the conditions of commodity exchange unfavorable for Russia. Imports from China, on the contrary, are characterized by a total substitution of Western brands and an increase in the supply of consumer goods, food and pharmaceuticals. The study of the dynamics of trade indicators allowed us to confirm the hypothesis of a fairly rapid saturation of the Russian market with Chinese goods in various sectors. Based on a comprehensive analysis, conclusions have been drawn about the risks and strengths for further deepening trade and economic partnership between the countries. The trade balance has taken on a negative value for Russia, which indicates the need for an operational restructuring of trade policy. It was noted that infrastructure has become a serious problem at the present stage of interaction. The idea is consistently substantiated that the potential for deepening trade relations remains enormous, but its realization lies not in the plane of a quantitative increase in volumes, but in a qualitative change in the structure of interaction.
Dorozhkina et al. (2026) studied this question.