Maria Snegovaya, Nicholas Fenton, and Tina Dolbaia
The IssueChina, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (CRINK) face obstacles to economic collaboration such as geographic distance, sanctions, mutual mistrust, and self-sufficiency goals.
Reliable data on CRINK’s economic and trade ties is limited due to lack of reported data from Iran and North Korea and the rise of informal and shadow trade since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Existing data reveals uneven patterns, although expanding bilateral agreements, strengthening energy ties, and increasing trade in dual-use technologies point to growing economic cooperation among the CRINK countries.
CRINK also seeks to integrate their financial and payment systems to bypass Western sanctions by prioritizing national currencies over the U.S. dollar.
The post-2022 China-Russia relationship drives most of the momentum, while Iran and North Korea exhibit expanding but considerably weaker integration with the rest of the group.
China is nevertheless a cautious actor that hedges its bets in energy trade with Russia and Iran, avoids flagrant sanctions violations, and faces constraints from its own economic slowdown.
Introduction
This brief explores the post-2022 economic ties among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—the so-called CRINK states. Historically, economic alignment among military allies has been uneven and has not necessarily indicated the formation of a cohesive bloc. The World War II–era Axis powers, for instance, had fragmented economic cooperation due to geographic distance, wartime needs, sanctions, mistrust, and a focus on self-sufficiency—factors that also constrain CRINK today.1
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