Op-ed: Saunders highlights China’s $16 billion windfall from discounted Russian oil

Writing for Russia Matters, a publication of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Paul Saunders and Harry Stevens point out that Western policies intended to punish Moscow are also providing substantial benefits to Beijing. in “How Western Curbs on Russian Oil Revenue Benefit China,” Saunders and Stevens write “Western policymakers have focused on the price cap’s economic damage to Russia. Yet from another perspective, the oil price cap is taking oil profits from Russia and handing the money to the countries still willing to buy its crude, especially China and India.” 

For related work, see Saunders’ EIRP report Russia’s Global Energy Role: War, Sanctions, and the Energy Transition as well as EIRP’s working papers on Russian energy.