Optimization of Foreign Trade Relations as a Way to Guarantee National Security and Achieve Sustainable Development Goals: An Example of Russian-Chinese Cooperation

International theoretical research on international trade describes in great detail the unique opportunities for increasing benefits at the country level from competently building foreign trade relations. They play a strategically important role in light of the transformation of globalization processes, deepening the lopsidedness of economic development, helping any economic entities that are currently uncompetitive to change their role and place in the structure of international economic relations in the future. Provided that national competitive advantages have already been generated and are constantly being increased, the policy of foreign economic liberalization contributes to the achievement of sustainable development goals and does not become the cause of increased threats to national security guarantees. For countries that have only comparative advantages, adherence to the same policy does not always guarantee the possibility of achieving similar goals. Analyzing the development of Russian-Chinese foreign trade cooperation, the authors of the study, on the one hand, express solidarity with the academic community and practitioners on the strategic importance of the Asian vector of Russia's development, which removes a number of threats to national security guarantees. On the other hand, they attempt to substantiate the need to diversify the commodity structure of export-import operations on the part of Russia, since otherwise it calls into question the possibility of achieving sustainable development goals. The country's strategic task should be not so much expanding the scale of cooperation with China, but rather revising the commodity structure of export-import operations with it. The solution to this problem can and should contribute to technological transformations in the Russian economy, and the processes of modernizing its base.