China Favors The West Amid Ukraine-Russia Crisis: Reuters

Based on trade flows alone, Beijing has a lot at stake following U.S. President Joe Biden's nearly two-hour video call with the Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday, with the White House confirming that sanctions on China were an option.

As per trade data reviewed by Reuters, China's economic interests remain tilted towards Western democracies, despite growing trade ties to Southeast Asia and an economy less dependent on trade over the past decade.

According to analysts, siding with Russia would make little economic sense for China, as the U.S. and European Union still consume more than a third of China's exports.

That is a drop from almost half of China's exports nearly two decades ago, but a relatively steady share since 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region.

Based on UN Comtrade data, China exported ten times as many cellphones, by value, to the U.S. alone, at $32.4 billion in 2020.

China's imports from Russia are dominated by oil. At $27 billion in 2020, crude oil and other petroleum dwarf all other imports from Russia, mainly commodities.

Although the U.S. has banned Russian energy imports, Western sanctions have not specifically targeted Russia's oil and gas exports. 

But the U.S.-led sanctions on Russian banks prohibiting dollar transactions have hampered China's ability to provide trade finance for oil Russian oil.

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