Russia has been touting its ties with China for the past month. Though most of it has been state media snubbing Americans and Europeans for sanctioning the Russian economy after it annexed Crimea, a former Ukrainian peninsula.  And the U.S., for all its talk of becoming a natural gas exporter to Europe and — indeed — the world, China imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas aren’t even on the radar.

What the import data from last year show is that China’s investments in Africa and the Middle East have paid off.  And a little known country that was once a Soviet stronghold is far and away China’s most important supplier of natural gas.  In fact, the U.S. has exported any natural gas to China this year, according to the Energy Information Agency (EIA).  The most recent U.S. gas export to China was in May 2011, when 1.12 million cubic feet were sent via LNG tanker from Alaska to China.