The industrial bottleneck of Sino-Russian oil and gas ties: a path dependence perspective

Abstract This article calls a prevailing view—that the oil and gas ties between Russia and China are going to be closer amid the West’s sanctions against Russia’s energy sector—into question. Empirically, it is observed that the oil and gas cooperation between the two countries lags behind diplomatic wording and external speculations after 2022. The article adopts the analytical perspective of path dependence of the industrial chain and illustrates how the industrial chain disengagement and the lack of the lock-in effect handicap the deeper Sino-Russian oil and gas cooperation against the background of the geopolitical storm and the economic sanctions. The article reviews the historic development of Sino-Russian cooperation in the upstream, midstream, and downstream segments and articulates the detrimental factors generated by the industrial chain bottleneck and the corresponding lack of path dependence.