Neutrality, that is China’s position in the Ukraine conflict. “Russia is a strategic partner, but we are not aligned” explained the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin. “It is not the situation we wanted for the country,” concluded the diplomat. Added to these words are a series of statements in which China has surprised the world, especially stating China’s “unwavering support” for “sovereignty and territorial integrity in Ukraine.” This neutral position has resulted in an abstention on the UN resolution condemning the invasion.
Despite the fact that the Asian giant puts NATO in the spotlight as the main responsible for what happened, from Beijing they keep a low profile. China’s interests in the Eastern European republic They are not exactly few. Since 2014, with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the country has been ravaged by civil war and Xi Jinping has since become a key partner. Year after year, projects, investments and influence have been growing extremely sensitively.
Until 2014, Russia was Kiev’s main and undisputed trading partner. However, the Government decided to abandon its economic dependence on a country with which it had major diplomatic problems. Then came China, which is currently the country to which Ukraine exports the most products. Specifically, the year 2020 was number one, with more than 7,120 million euros. This is 14% of all its sales abroad, Poland is the second with less than half (3,280 million euros) and Russia is already the third, almost at the same level as Turkey, Germany or India with just 2,700 million .
The main interests of the country are iron, corn and sunflower, which have become the center of its sales. What’s more, barley is also one of the most common purchases from the country. China bought more than 8 million tons of this product from Ukraine, more than 30% of its total imports, making it an important partner for its supply.
In addition, local companies have increased their purchases of ‘made in China’ products. It is already the country from which he buys the most, with more than 8,250 million euros spent in imports from the Asian giant (15% of the total). Germany accounts for 10% of imports (5,330 million euros) and Russia, with 8.5% (4,550 million). A downward trend in which countries like Poland are already bordering on sorpasso, with only 500 million difference.
In 2013, China acquired 9% of all arable land in the country.
Apart from trade, another reason why Ukraine is a strategic country for Beijing is because of its farmland. In a rare deal in Europe, in 2013 China acquired 9% of all arable land in the country, more than 29,000 square kilometers in the region from Dnipropetrovsk. This is a formula that has already been used in African countries with the idea of China is to ensure the supply of wheat and food for its huge population and with this agreement.
It is, for the moment, the largest agricultural project outside its borders. An insurance to achieve basic products at a very cheap price. The explotion is executed by the Xinjuang firm, which collaborates with the Ukrainian KSG Agro. Both parties formed a joint society by virtue of a historic agreement at a time of crisis in the country that today is compromised by a possible invasion in the region (which at the moment is far from the front).
Ukraine, the “door to Europe”
Although, the biggest Chinese bet is not the purchase of its products, but its powerful investment in infrastructure. Xi Jinping’s idea is to create a route that connects Beijing with Madrid completely terrestrial and for this he has invested a lot of money in infrastructures that connect his country with Russia (via Afghanistan) and, from Moscow, with Western Europe, via Belarus and Poland.
However, Ukraine has joined the project at the last minute with a very important role in this project. China’s idea is to strongly reinforce the country’s infrastructure to serve as a parallel route and be able to reinforce shipments. In that sense in 2018 they spent 7,000 million dollars on projects of this type in the country, in particular in various extensions and construction of ports in the Black Sea. Three years later, the Ukrainian route has become an equal or more important bet than the Polish one and both governments have intensified their commercial relations.
“If China wants to come and improve our ports, railways and build roads, why stop them?”
“We can expect the Chinese to undertake more such projects,” Infrastructure Minister Volodymry Omelyan said in a recent interview. “They have been very interested in Ukraine”. He added that although they prefer investment from the West, “if China wants to come and improve our ports, railways and build roads, why stop them?”
In 2021, the Zelensky government signed an infrastructure agreement by which both executives will actively collaborate on various projects throughout the country. At the signing of this agreement, the Ukrainian president promised that Kiev would be “the bridge to Europe” and affirmed that his country supports the unity of China in full altercations in Hong Kong. For his part, Xi Jinping himself stated that China did the same and that “we support the territorial integrity of Ukraine.” A phrase that the Chinese foreign minister repeated exactly with the Russian invasion.
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