Despite the sanctions imposed by the United States, China began to actively import natural liquefied gas from a Russian project on the black list of the American administration, thus strengthening the energy relations with Moscow in a moment of accentuated international tensions.
XI Jinpin and Vladimir Putin/Photo: EPA/EFE
According to public data tracking data, revised by Newsweek, the Russian ship Zarya, under sanctions, landed on Tuesday in the natural gas terminal in Beihai Port, located in southern China. It is the third gas transport that this ship delivers in the region, the load coming from the Arctic LNG 2 project, from northern Siberia.
This evolution comes at a sensitive time, in which US President Donald Trump has publicly expressed dissatisfaction with Vladimir Putin's refusal to implement a fire termination agreement in Ukraine. It remains to be seen how Washington will react to this new diplomatic challenge.
The Biden administration officially sanctioned the Arctic LNG 2 project at the end of 2023, in an attempt to limit the financing of the Kremlin war machine. However, the collapse of the European demand after the 2022 invasion was compensated by a spectacular increase in energy trade with China – in the meantime that became the main Russian gas buyer.
While some Chinese companies have been targeted by sanctions for exports of double use and ruble transactions, Beijing has not been penalized for direct energy acquisitions in Russia – a distinction that reflects the delicate balance of global economic relations.
Zaria ship and fleet from the “shadow” of sanctions
Zaria-a gas carrier with an estimated capacity at 160,000 cubic meters-is part of the so-called “shadow fleet”, a group of renamed ships, re-recorded and reconfigured to avoid international sanctions. These include former North Way, North Sky, North Air and North Mountain, all renamed and repositioned in recent months, according to Gcaptain.
All these ships left the Russian waters at the end of last month and, according to data reviewed by Newsweek, were near China in early September.
The port of Beihai in the province of Guangxi was appointed by the Chinese authorities as the main hub for receiving transport from Arctic LNG 2, a strategic choice meant to isolate these transactions of international markets and to limit the possible effects of retrival measures, according to sources quoted by Bloomberg.
A symbolic understanding between XI and Putin
The first transport from the Arctic LNG 2 project was received by China just a few days before the summit of the Shanghai cooperation organization, in which Vladimir Putin participated personally. During the meeting, the Russian leader has achieved a significant victory: China's agreement to start works on a second major energy bus – Power of Siberia 2 – which will further expand the flow of Russian gas to the second largest economy.
The “test” of the West
According to Fiona de Cuyper, an associate researcher of the Arctic Institute in Oslo, this series of events signals not only a deepening of the syno-Russian energy interdependence, but also a direct challenge to the credibility of the sanction regime imposed by the US and the EU.
“China's acceptance of the first Arctic LNG 2 transport, in tandem with the Power of Siberia 2 agreement, represents a deliberate test of the application of Western sanctions”wrote by Cuyper in a recent report.
Official reactions were not delayed. Guo Jiakun, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in July: “China will adopt the energy measures that it considers appropriate, depending on its national interests. The tariff wars have no winners, and the external pressure is not a solution.”
For his part, the Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski reiterated the appeal for all countries to cease any form of economic cooperation with Russia: “We must stop any energy purchase in Russia. We cannot have agreements with Moscow if we really want to stop it.”
Donald Trump, who promises to stop the Ukraine war “on the first day” of returning to the White House, has already begun to tighten the tone. Last month, he imposed a 50% rate on imports from India, and this week asked European leaders to adopt additional rates against both China and India – a clear signal that the issue of energy relations with Russia will be at the center of the future American agenda.
