The Moscow Times: Pivot East Lets Russia Down

After a year of intense flirtation, the Chinese-Russian relationship is beginning to look like a one-sided love affair.

Increasingly cut off from Western markets after the imposition of sanctions, Russian leaders initially pinned their economic hopes on a pivot eastward. Russians thought that Beijing would jump at the chance to buy deposits, flood Russia with cheap financing, and hand over essential technologies.

However, Moscow's expectations of greater engagement with Beijing have gone unfulfilled: The volume of trade and investment between the two nations has dwindled as a result of falling natural resource prices, sanctions, ruble volatility, and the Russian economic crisis.

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