Paul Krugman @paulkrugman
The speed with which Russia has been cut off from the world economy has been as stunning as the slowness with which Russian forces have advanced in Ukraine. But can Putin offset the de facto blockade by dealing with China? That would be harder than many imagine 1/
For one thing, while China and Russia are technically neighbors, in economic terms they really aren't. Russia's economy is mostly west of the Urals, China's near the coasts. The population centers of gravity are very far apart 2/
As Noah Smith documents, the economies aren't very complementary either 3/
noahpinion.substack.com/p/how-will-russias-war-affect-china?s=r
How will Russia's war affect China?
I foresee an era of caution and stasis.
Paul Krugman @paulkrugman
Furthermore, Chinese banks — which do a lot of business with the rest of the world — will be very reluctant to deal with Russia 4/
And there's one more point, which I haven't seen people making: the huge imbalance between the national economies. Russia is really tiny compared with China 5/
So if you imagine that China and Russia will somehow form a new authoritarian Axis, Russia would be overwhelmingly the junior partner. In fact, Russia is far less powerful relative to China than Mussolini's Italy was relative to Germany 6/
The only thing Russia might have had to offset this imbalance was its reputation for having a highly effective military machine. That reputation has already been lost in the Ukrainian mud 7/
It would be ironic if Putin's attempt to reestablish the Russian empire ends up turning Russia into a Chinese vassal state. But that's exactly what will happen if he relies on China to bail him out now 8/