By Stephen J. Blank
With tensions with Russia bubbling beneath the surface, China has been keen to build ties with Ukraine and Belarus. They’ve been happy to reciprocate.
China may not yet have acted upon the eurozone’s pleadings for a bailout, but that doesn’t mean Beijing is playing a passive role in Europe. Indeed, as it expands its economic presence and political influence in the EU, it is also rapidly enlarging its presence in (and attraction) to Eastern Europe. Indeed, while China’s interests and motives in Russia and Central Asia are well known, its growing stake in Eastern Europe generally – and Ukraine and Belarus in particular – have received much less attention.
By 2009, China had begun to show an economic interest in former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe, lending Moldova, for example, $1 billion at 3 percent interest over 15 years. But China’s interest in Ukraine and Belarus as production centers of advanced Russian technology – and as places where China could examine Russian weapons and recruit Soviet scientists – dates back to 1992.
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