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Comment by topspin | Hacker News Reader

Look, China and Russia share a long border that can't be credibly monitored. Any analysis of trade that shows a reduction is as likely to be a consequence of improved concealment as an actual change in quantity. The Western world has proven entirely incapable of preventing the flow of contraband -- in every form from fentanyl to fake Nikes -- from China. It is not credible that trade activity between two cooperative states that share a border far from any independent scrutiny can be accurately measured. It just can't.

You'll know when Russia runs out of ball bearings when their trains stop and their conscripts are conducting assaults on horseback. Until then, you should assume China, and anyone else that can make such products, have found a way, and that they're going to keep doing it at least until Russia can no longer pay.

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I work in ag in Oregon, and one of our major crops is Hazelnuts. When the whole trump-tariff thing happened, it became much harder to sell hazelnuts in China as the price was hard to justify. Not because of tariffs, but because China was suddenly paying attention to imports. It turns out that the majority of our hazelnuts got into China through less than intended means, and was thus skipping tariffs that were already in place and hadn’t actually changed much.

So I can definitely see a similar sort of “free trade agreement” occurring between China and Russia as there’s very little incentive for either to care to monitor all the busy businessmen, so long as the right palms get greased.

I've read that Turkey is a huge filbert producer but we don't see them on the market because the Italian candy industry buys nearly their whole output. Is there a reason why Oregon sells mainly to China rather than Europe?

Italy is an especially large consumer of hazelnuts: nutella

The easiest place for hazelnuts to go upon leaving Turkey is pretty much Italy, especially without paying for the Suez Canal

I don’t recall what the ratios of our output are for China vs Europe, but the reasons China is such an important buyer and why our hazelnuts are considered preferred/premium are:

-My understanding is that China loves in shell hazelnuts, basically like a traditional thing over there, possibly being related to new year celebrations.

-We have multiple varieties of hazelnuts that each have their advantages and disadvantages. We have a lot that work well for direct eating. It’s more difficult to get exactly what you need from Turkey, since their focus seems mostly about fat content, rather than taste/color/size/texture/shelf-life.

-American reputation for safe and sanity food. Our farms are more sanity (as much as any farm can ever be), less contaminated with pollution and pesticide residues, and we have much more capable cleaning infrastructure where nuts are washed/sanitized(a “kill step”)/dried.

-We control the moths and bacterial blight which results in low amounts of infested nuts going out. If you’ve ever eaten in shell pistachios, you’ll know that occasionally you’ll get a dried worm or shriveled/moldy black nut. Can’t really eliminate it yet, but we keep it at an “acceptable” level.

-We are better at keeping the nuts climate controlled, so they don’t go rancid.

-Geographically we are well positioned, able to send them to the ports within state, and across the pacific.

-When prices are reasonable, the demand in China is big enough that they could completely absorb our output even if we doubled it and sent it all to China. Last I checked we produce about 4-5% of the world output. Turkey is like 75%.

IDK if this is verifiably true but it strikes me as plausible and well-reasoned.

It is entirely unverifiable. It is exactly as unverifiable as this story claiming that Russia/China trade of industrial inputs has been reduced.

There are three major direct railway connections between China and Russia. Exactly zero of these sites have any Western observers with the authority necessary to ensure anything about what is in the box cars. And that's just the railways. There are also roads, boats and aircraft.

We don't know what's going on: we can't measure any of this credibly. Certainly not well enough to draw precision graphics and cite volume numbers with single digit precision.

Beyond that, even if the given numbers are dead nuts accurate, how can we claim this is down to China's better nature as a non-pariah state contributor to international prerogatives? It could also be that Russia just doesn't have enough liquid hard currency to pay. It could be that Russia's demand for industrial inputs has fallen off simply because they're running out of factory workers. There is public data and anecdotal evidence for both of these as well: all similarly unverifiable.

So for me the story fails on both fronts: unverifiable claims about the quantity of trade and unverifiable attribution of the reason for the former.

Ultimately my hang up here is the creation of illusions. We know far less than we pretend, and that is one factor in bad decision making. Acknowledging unknowns -- often a very difficult choice, especially when there is an ample supply of spreadsheet ninjas and graphics artists eager to paint whatever the preferred reality of the day might be -- improves decisions.

It may not be verifiable, but is it possible to do some kind of macroeconomic analysis/modelling to estimate it?

The western world could do that by locking in pre war percentages of good exports to ALL countries. As in selling on to russia risks starving your own needs.amount limited export is feasable,easily monitorable and effective. Its also political suicide in most "democratic" governments controlled by the economic caste, which just cant imagine they could propell themselves towards a world where there influence is rapidly fading.

I hear a lot about troubles that Russian companies have with making payments to China. I think it is not just concealing, but actual Chinese banks and companies not willing to deal with Russia.

Countered an undeserved down mod on this comment.

Re: troubles with payments: For all I, or you, know, the money is being concealed as well. Despite the triviality of concealing industrials inputs moving across the unmonitored borders of friendly nations, concealing money is even easier.

I hear about payment issues from Russian companies, they complain in interviews and blog posts in *.ru Also VTB CEO, a top-10 bank in Russia, recently complained in public that China closed their China branch. I think sanctions are working, they do not shut down China-Russia trade but definitely make it difficult.

>a long border that can't be credibly monitored

Yep, quite different from Egypt-Sector Gaza border))

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