On the phone call between China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmyro Kuleba on 1st March 2022, Minister Wang expressed his profound regrets on the current conflict, and paid particular attention to the civilian casualties. He also stated that China would be willing to facilitate the negotiations between both sides for a ceasefire. At the UNGA Emergency Special Session one day before, Chinese Ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun suggested that the rapidly escalating situation in Ukraine was something China “does not wish to see and which is not in the interest of any party”. The two statements could be seen as somewhat a series of less ambiguous expression of China’s position on the ongoing crisis that had come as a shock for Beijing. Yet, both events follow China’s abstention from the UN Security Council Resolution 2623 earlier. Would it be the beginning of the Asian giant’s slowly shifting attitudes towards the crisis? Although this remains to be seen, there are several reasons for China to hold back from embracing the Kremlin’s aggression against the sovereign Ukraine, which include functional calculation, diplomatic and military bond, strategic consideration, and normative reflection.

First, China has become Ukraine’s largest trading partner since 2020. As per China’s Foreign Ministry, Ukraine is China’s third largest trading partner in Eurasia. Furthermore, Ukraine signed the Belt and Road Initiative cooperation agreement with China in 2020, and has served as a critical node in this initiative. According to the China’s Ministry of Commerce, both nations wished to deepen infrastructure cooperation by signing yet another intergovernmental agreement in promoting the building of railways, roads and bridges. For Beijing, Ukraine is an essential gateway and transit hub to the EU. Some commentators suggested that Beijing considered favourably Kyiv’s 2017 trade agreement with the EU. This could be exemplified by remarks by Ambassador Zhang who said that “Ukraine should serve as a bridge of communication between East and West instead of as a frontline for geopolitical rivalries”. Though it is unclear how China’s business groups, SOEs or line ministries are interpreting the crisis, it would not be surprising that the Kremlin’s aggression has created huge uncertainty for the prospect of Chinese trade and investments with the country, making them reluctant to have the government side with Moscow from a functional perspective. Another functional calculation is that China does not wish to be affected by the repercussions of Western sanctions imposed on Russia, which is gradually coming to fore. So far, Beijing has sought cautiously not to aid Moscow in evading the sanctions, and some Chinese banks have halted issuing letters of credit for acquisition of Russian commodities. Last but not least, what we could learn from Beijing’s reaction towards the Venezuelan crisis was that actors in China may actually not be willing to bet on a failing economy by halting the provision of fresh money to the Maduro’s regime.

Second, the diplomatic and military bond between China and Ukraine is not as weak as some would assume. This year marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Kyiv, and China was among the first countries to recognise Ukraine’s independence. China’s Ambassador to Ukraine, Fan Xianrong, recalled in his signed article “Ukrainians’ heroic assistance to China during the era of world anti-fascism war”, and “Ukrainian experts’ aid with China’s construction on the outset of the PRC”. As the educational hub of the USSR, Ukraine helped train lots of Chinese experts in the industry, agriculture, sanitation, and science sectors in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and Dnipro.

As to military cooperation, China has relied on Ukrainian specialists in modernising the aircraft carrier—Varyag—purchased previously by a Hong Kong businessman from Ukraine. Later, the vessel was renamed Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier which has become the source of national pride. According to a report, Ukraine is one of the weaponry suppliers to China, even against the backdrop of increasingly tense Sino-US relations. The report details that the supplies include turbofan engines, diesel engines, and gas turbines. Moreover, with the help of Ukrainian engineers, Beijing managed to conduct reverse engineering on the Russian Su-27 fighter and turned it into its own J-11 fighter. Having Ukraine as an alternative military partner alleviates China’s dependence on a non-ally—Russia.

Diplomatically, China’s then President Hu Jintao and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych elevated the bilateral relationship to the strategic partnership level in 2011. In the agreement, both sides expressed that “they would support each other on the matters related to national sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity”. Hence, the Sino-Ukraine diplomatic and military bond should not be neglected when assessing Beijing’s reluctance to side with the Kremlin in the current crisis.

Third, the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine has ignited an unprecedented unity in the transatlantic alliance, something that Beijing does not wish to see. Strategically speaking, analysts pointed out that, in contrast to Russia, China seeks to have “a stable—but pliant and fragmented—EU and large and integrated European single market that underpins it”, and is also interested in a weak transatlantic alliance except for issues like counterterrorism. The swift response and aligned position across transatlantic partners are not in Beijing’s geostrategic interests. Meanwhile, Beijing would have to think twice if it wanted to keep its relationship with Russia which is facing severe sanctions and is likely to degenerate into a global pariah.

Fourth, China finds itself in a tough situation where the Kremlin’s aggression is at odds with the country’s long-standing normative adherence to national sovereignty and the Five Principles of Coexistence, not to mention that China has stressed time and again its respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty. Moscow’s breach of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine was premised upon the pretext of peacekeeping function aimed to protect its citizens allegedly suffering from “genocide” conducted by Kyiv. Amidst the Western accusations against Beijing’s internal human rights record, acquiescing to Kremlin’s aggression based on unproven allegation of genocide in Ukraine might ultimately be seen as a double standard, and might weaken its sovereigntist discourse when foreign actors were to intervene in its domestic affairs related to human rights violation.

A deeper tension faced by Beijing is how to reconcile its strict adherence to sovereignty on the one hand and its echoing of Russia’s interpretation of indivisible security doctrine enshrined in the 1990 Charter of Paris on the other. Even on 1st March 2022, the China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson still emphasised on a press conference that “a country’s security cannot be at the expense of that of the others”, and that “Russia’s legitimate demands should be considered and duly settled following five rounds of NATO expansion”. The ensuing question is: does NATO’s defiance of Moscow’s interpretation of indivisible security principle justify the latter’s current unprovoked intrusion of Ukraine’s territory? If China truly respects Ukraine’s sovereignty, would it not also be the case that it ought to respect a sovereign country’s choice to participate in any international arrangement it wishes? As long as China struggles with the normative tension between the country’s foreign policy doctrine and the indivisible security principle, it is unlikely that it will embrace the Kremlin during the ongoing crisis.

The complete version of this article is available on The Diplomat.

Lunting Wu is a doctoral researcher at Berlin Graduate School for Global and Transregional Studies (BGTS) of SCRIPTS and lecturer at Freie Universität Berlin. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Instituto do Oriente of the University of Lisbon.