Gold Reshapes the Global Trade Order: A Look at the De-dollarization Wave from Russia's Breakthrough

Russia’s gold exports to China are becoming a key signal in the reshaping of the global economic landscape. According to Chinese customs statistics for 2025, Russia’s net gold imports from China reached 25.3 tons, an 800% surge compared to the previous year, setting a historic record for gold trade between the two countries. Behind this figure lies a complete story of how a sanctioned country is breaking through—using physical assets to evade frozen accounts, settling in RMB to bypass SWIFT controls, and exchanging gold for essential industrial goods.

Gold Breakthrough in the Sanctions Dilemma

When the West froze Russia’s hundreds of billions of dollars in financial assets, a seemingly paradoxical phenomenon emerged: the fully sanctioned country was accelerating gold exports. The answer lies in the form of asset freezing—what is frozen are “digital accounts,” while gold exists physically.

Russia’s central bank’s gold reserves are stored in dispersed locations—its Moscow headquarters and secret warehouses in the Far East. These physical metals do not depend on any electronic payment system, are not constrained by dollar hegemony, and are inherently immune to international financial sanctions. In contrast, the frozen assets of Western financial institutions, though vast, are just ineffective digital symbols.

Russia had already prepared for this. Since the 2014 Crimea incident, Moscow has been systematically pursuing a “de-dollarization” strategy. From 2014 to 2022, Russia’s gold and foreign exchange reserves increased by over 300%. During the same period, Russia established the domestic financial messaging system (SPFS) to bypass SWIFT and connected directly with China’s cross-border payment system (CIPS), enabling seamless settlement between the ruble, RMB, and gold—fundamentally bypassing the traditional dollar settlement system.

Gold for RMB, RMB for Survival

Why does Russia continuously send gold to China? On the surface, to obtain RMB, but essentially, to exchange gold for survival opportunities. Western technological blockades have left Russia facing serious industrial hollowing—high-end chips, precision machine tools, automotive bearings, medical equipment—these strategic industrial products Russia cannot produce domestically in the short term.

Purchasing these goods with dollars has become impossible, and the euro is controlled by adversaries. The only option is gold. Russia exchanges gold for RMB, then uses RMB to purchase large quantities of industrial goods from China. Trade data show that among the goods imported from China, bearings, precision machine tools, semiconductor materials, and other vital industrial supplies dominate. Bearings, though seemingly insignificant, are fundamental components of manufacturing—needed in cars, machinery, energy equipment—and when Russia’s local supply chain breaks down, Chinese bearings become a lifeline.

This creates a completely new trade cycle: Russia’s oil, gas, and gold are converted into RMB, which is used to buy industrial products, sustaining the economy, which in turn continues to produce oil, gas, and gold. The entire system operates without the need for USD or SWIFT, completely freeing itself from US financial control. This is a modern form of barter trade—far more scaled and sophisticated than any historical exchange of agricultural societies.

The Global Central Bank’s Golden Awakening

Even more astonishing is that this is not an isolated phenomenon between Russia and China but a collective awakening among global central banks.

In 2025, global central banks set a new record for gold demand. Poland’s central bank increased its gold reserves by 102 tons, becoming the world’s largest gold buyer for two consecutive years. Turkey and Kazakhstan added 27 and 57 tons respectively, both reaching historic highs. European central banks like Germany and Italy launched “local gold storage” plans, repatriating gold stored abroad back home. By year’s end, 59% of central banks worldwide had shifted their gold reserves to domestic storage.

By the end of 2025, the total value of global central bank gold holdings reached $3.92 trillion, surpassing their holdings of US Treasuries for the first time since 1996. What does this turning point signify? Central banks are voting with their actions, replacing the dollar with gold as a symbol of trust.

The Emergence of a New Triangle System

The once-dominant global trade cycle was centered on “oil-dollar”: oil settled in dollars, and the dollar served as the international reserve currency, granting the US monetary and financial advantages. Now, this unipolar system is being broken, replaced by a new triangle: resources (oil, natural gas, minerals) → gold (value medium) → industrial goods (real economy).

China is at the heart of this triangle. Russia’s resources and gold flow to China, which in turn uses its capacity and industrial products to feed back into the global economy. The most critical feature of this new triangle is that it operates entirely without the participation of the dollar. Central banks’ gold reserves are no longer “dollar insurance vaults” but become direct anchors of value.

The sanctioned Russia has inadvertently become a pioneer of this financial revolution.