China has been using its own currency — the yuan — for almost all of the Russian oil it bought over the past year.
- Russia has sent record fuel-oil flows to China in May, according to Bloomberg.
- In 2022 China imported $88 billion worth of major commodities including crude oil and fuel oil from Russia — up 52% in value from 2021.
Both China and Russia have been trying to reduce their reliance on the dollar for years. But their adoption started to gain pace only after the Ukraine war started.
- In March 2023, the yuan surpassed the dollar as the most used currency for Chinese cross-border transactions.
- Russia’s payments system, the SPFS, has also expanded quickly since the war, the country’s central bank said.
Click here to see how China is leading the de-dollarization charge.