Last year, China replaced the US as the No 1 importer of oil from Venezuela, yet another front in the heated rivalry between Washington and Beijing.
But in August, Washington tightened its sanctions on Venezuela, warning that any foreign entity that continued to do business with the South American country's government could find itself subject to sanctions. State-owned China National Petroleum Corp, known as CNPC, stopped loading oil at Venezuelan ports that month. China's import data showed purchases started to slow, and by late 2019, abruptly stopped.
But China never stopped buying. Crude from Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, kept arriving at Chinese ports with the help of a Switzerland-based unit of Rosneft, Russia's state-owned oil company, and a roundabout delivery method that made it appear as if the oil's origin was Malaysia, Reuters has found.