China is unlikely to stop buying oil from Russia, given the mutually beneficial relationship between Moscow and Beijing in the energy sector, despite threats by US President Donald Trump to impose high tariffs on countries importing Russian energy. This opinion was expressed by experts on the pages of the newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP).
A specialist on Central Asia at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Li Lifan, believes that the United States cannot currently disrupt political and economic relations between China and Russia, “as the leaders of the two countries will meet at the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin and at the Victory Parade in China in September“.
“China and Russia can trade oil in their own currencies, which will help circumvent secondary US sanctions”, he believes.
A senior official at the Canadian research company BCA Research, Matt Gertken, believes that Russian oil will continue “flow south in the long term“. He noted that “China's strategic goals require stable and reliable supplies of critical resources such as oil“.
SCMP recalls that Russia is China's main source of oil imports, having supplied a record 108.5 million tons, or 19.6% of total imports, in 2024. According to data from Chinese customs, the volume of Russian oil imports from January to June 2025 decreased by 10.9% year-on-year to 49.11 million tons. Li Xing Gan, a consultant at trading platform Exness, believes that this decline is explained by the impact of US sanctions on Russian seaborne exports and China's desire to diversify its sources of oil supply. However, “Russia remains the largest oil supplier to China“, the expert noted.
On July 14, Trump said he was giving 50 days to reach an agreement to resolve the situation around Ukraine, after which he intended to impose 100% trade tariffs on Moscow and its trading partners. On July 29, the American leader made a statement that he was reducing the specified period to 10 days, noting that he did not know whether such a step would affect Russia's position.