In the matter of investments in Russia, Chinese investors behaved just like others. According to the central bank's data, during three years of war foreign investments in the real sector of the Russian economy fell by 57 percent. From $ 497.7 billion (PLN 1.8 trillion) direct foreign investment that had enterprises on January 1, 2022, until the beginning of 2025, only $ 216 billion remained. (PLN 815 billion) The lowest amount since 2009. In this way, the Kremlin hopes that “friendly” countries, like China, will replace Russia Western investors, turned out to be in vain.
During the meeting with the Chinese leader XI Jinping at the beginning of May, Putin stated that Russia would be satisfied with the appearance of Chinese production plants on its territory. He noted that Moscow is ready to provide them with “comfortable conditions for activities” and considers Russian-Chinese relations for “A model of inter -state relations in the 21st century.”.
However, earlier, the Chinese authorities banned local investing companies in the Russian oil and gas sector, ordered automotive concerns not to build factories in Russia, and refused to finance the project “Siberia-2”. According to data from the American Institute of Entrepreneurship, the last large Chinese investment project in Russia comes from 2021.
Even before the war, Russia had A bad reputation among Chinese investors – says the director of Berlin Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and one of the leading Russian sinologists Aleksander Gabajew. According to him, Russian assets are just as expensive for Beijing as those from developed markets, but in the country there is neither the protection of the investment nor the understandable judicial system.
