Bilateral trade between Russia and China has grown steadily and the positive trend will continue, according to Xu Sitao, chief economist with Deloitte, consulting in China. He warned US economy is facing risk of recession by 2020.  Xu said China has become the largest export market for Russia since 2017, accounting for roughly 12-13 percent of Russian exports. [...]

As more countries pay for oil in yuan, the standing of the Chinese currency in global finance has grown, an analyst tells RT. However, its future path won’t be completely smooth, he warns. “If people started to pay for oil in yuan, central banks would need to hold reserves in yuan, leading to a massive increase in the global demand for yuan, reducing the cost of financing the Chinese economy,� [...]

According to Reuters' sources, the meeting will solely focus on the implementation issues and details of the Iran nuclear deal. Diplomats from Germany, France, Britain, led by senior EU diplomat Helga Schmid, and also from Russia and China, will be meeting in Vienna next week to discuss a new agreement with Iran similar to the 2015 deal, but one that would put curbs on Tehran's ballistic [...]

The real goal behind recent US sanctions is to isolate Russia economically from Europe and Asia, according to an analyst interviewed by RT. “The most obvious reason for sanctions is to drive a wedge into the relationship between Russia and the European Union, between Russia and China, etc.” said TeleTradeBel analyst Mikhail Grachev. [...]

A new report by Wealth-X showed the number of billionaires is currently at historic high, with US leading the list. In total, the richest one percent on the planet owns about half of the world’s wealth. The report revealed that the billionaire population and their wealth skyrocketed to record levels last year. They now control around $9.2 trillion in wealth – a 24 percent increase from 2016. [...]

Washington’s intention to re-impose the "toughest" sanctions on Iran appears to be playing into the hands of Chinese investors and oil futures traders, analysts have come to believe. Shanghai crude oil futures ISCc1 have recently seen a significant uptick in their trade volumes, which hit a record 250,000 lots last Wednesday, a day after Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the 2015 Iran [...]

Washington’s renewed sanctions on Tehran supports China’s newly established oil futures, analysts say. The sanctions can make the yuan a more preferable currency than the dollar on the oil market. Since their launch in May, the interest in the renminbi-backed oil contracts has steadily surged. Traded daily volumes hit a record 250,000 lots last Wednesday, and the share of yuan contracts in glo [...]

Beijing has officially opened its new train route to Iran, as the US urges its companies to wind down their operations with the Islamic Republic. As US President Donald Trump hardens his confrontational attitude to Tehran, tearing up the 2015 nuclear deal and calling for a new sanctions regime, China is more than ready to grab the opportunity for trade by opening a new international railroad conne [...]

While Washington is challenging the multipolar world with unilateral actions, Europe has vowed to challenge its hegemony. However, it has not enough character and political will to fit the role, former UK MP George Galloway says. The US decision to pull out from the long-weaved nuclear deal with Iran prompted the EU to consider replacing its overseas ally “as an international actor.” [...]

An upcoming Wuhan summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to bring the relationship between China and India – Russia's allies – to a new level. Washington's assertive foreign policy prompted Moscow, Beijing and New Delhi to team up. [...]

President Xi Jinping shrewdly counters coming trade war with surprise offer to purchase America outright. President Donald Trump claimed on Monday that he working on “a huge deal with China that will bring more than $30 trillion into America. No president has ever done anything like this before and it’s all because of my tariff pressure! SMART!” In a series of tweets, Mr. Trump also called t [...]

Beijing continues to lure away the handful of countries which still maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan. On Tuesday, the Dominican Republic became the latest country to break away from Taipei and establish diplomatic relations with mainland China. Sputnik Mundo has discussed the reasons behind this dramatic U-turn and its potential impact for the region with Andrei Sidorov, an assistant professo [...]

Washington's latest round of sanctions targeting Russian business will cost the German economy billions of euros, according to estimates revealed by the Russian-German Foreign Trade Chamber (AHK). “The recent sanctions of the US against Russia may cost the German economy billions of euros in years to come,” the report said. [...]

The grandiose construction of the century has been completed; the world’s longest sea bridge connecting Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau will be opened this year. The chief engineer and the inspiration behind the project, 43-year-old Zhang Jinwen told Sputnik about how they started designing the bridge 18 years ago, the difficulties that the engineers had encountered in building one of the world’s [...]

The price of the traditional safe haven gold increased on Monday after Beijing introduced retaliatory measures against American goods coming to China. After falling in the past three trading sessions, the yellow metal surged over $8 per troy ounce to $1,335. [...]

Moscow and Beijing will team up to create an integrated navigation system based on Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) and the Chinese BeiDou. The satellite system will cover most of Eurasia. The countries will reportedly negotiate the merger in May at the International Conference on Advanced Technologies in Manufacturing and Materials Engineering in the Chinese city of Harbin, [...]

Muammar Gaddafi wanted to shatter the dominance of the greenback in the Middle East by introducing gold-backed dinar, but failed. China has a chance to finish what he started, one industry expert has told RT. “Ideas related to oil trade in currencies other than the dollar arose more than once.  [...]

Beijing is hiking up tariffs on more than 128 US imports, including fruit and pork, as part of a tit-for-tat response to US President Donald Trump’s $60 billion package of tariffs imposed against China. The additional fares, which range from 15 to 25 percent, will take effect on Monday, the Chinese Finance Ministry said on their website. [...]

Leaders of the two US military branches have warned that China is “weaponizing capital” - buying strategically valuable land from other countries to give themselves a military edge to “win without fighting.” During a House of Representatives Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Thursday, US Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer told lawmakers that the issue of Chinese land [...]

China is the world's biggest crude consumer and buys most of its oil from Russia. However, most settlements are still in US dollars. The launch of the petro-yuan now allows Moscow and Beijing to use national currencies instead. China and Russia are actively reducing dependence on the dollar in bilateral trade. In October 2017, Beijing launched a payment system for transactions in yuan and Russian [...]

The new trade war announced by US President Donald Trump is seeing some immediate and effective blowback in the form of a refusal by Beijing to lift its ban on the import of foreign garbage. Amid fears of a potentially devastating trade war between the US and China, Washington has urged Beijing not to implement the ban on US garbage and recyclable materials that Asia’s giant threatened to impose [...]

The gold accumulated by China and Russia could be seen as part of a strategy to move away from international trade denominated in US dollars, according to Singapore’s BullionStar precious metals expert Ronan Manly. Manly exclusively told RT that there is a shift occurring regarding the two countries building up their gold reserves, to perhaps returning to gold-backed currencies in the future an [...]