China Comes Closer To Ukraine To Russian And American Discomfort

Strangely, while China and Ukraine have never seen eye-to-eye, they are entering into a trade deal where they plan to build on infrastructure.

This is obviously coming as a great surprise to Russia as geopolitical stability seems be at high risk. There is speculation that this move could have come after the vaccine diplomacy card that China has played on a lot of countries in need.

Ukraine was forced to withdraw its support from a joint statement on human rights violation by the Chinese, which was graciously welcomed by Beijing. In the past, US has pressured Ukraine to keep away from China when Washington got Kiev to sanction Motor Sich. At the end of last year, Chinese investors in Motor Sich sought international arbitration against Ukraine with a demand for compensation of $3.5 billion.

But now, everything seems to be water under the bridge. The suddenly growing bond between to unlikely partners is worrisome for the US and Russia both. China has found ways to arm twist nations that have sour relations with the other super powerful nations of the world.

In the last two years, both countries have also signed new contracts in the Ukrainian engineering market exceeding $2 billion for two consecutive years, making positive contributions to the country’s economic development, data from the MOFCOM showed.

China will help Ukraine build roads, airports and railways, literally giving the eastern power great access into the Western world. In the past, there has also been pressure on Ukraine of other kinds. Andriy Sharaskin, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign policy committee, said China demanded that Ukraine take its signature off the joint statement and made it clear that promised deliveries of Covid-19 vaccines would be scrapped.

Ukraine has had a troublesome existence with Russia constantly trying to get into its pants and other powerful nations trying to call shots on its sovereignty. But with the China involvement, Ukraine has put itself to the dungeons, literally. Chinas has history of arm twising nations and buying them off by giving financial loans. This time, its used the vaccine diplomacy route. China’s embassy in Ukraine has publicly denied having exerted any pressure on Ukraine over the joint statement. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.