Don’t Let China Win the Peace in Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves around the world and continues to dominate political agendas across Europe. Thousands of people have died, and millions fled Ukraine – leading to the largest refugee crisis since World War II.
The end of this war is nowhere in sight – with Russia launching multiple new rounds of attacks in recent days, and Ukraine beginning its long-anticipated counteroffensive.
Despite the focus on winning the war, we must also start thinking about another vital aim – winning the peace. Failing to win can pose long-term risks to the stability of Ukraine and the region.
If the war ends today, the costs of Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction stand at a staggering 411 billion USD, according to the latest World Bank report. To put that figure into context – in today’s money the Marshall Plan (US economic assistance for post-WWII Europe reconstruction) would have been almost three times cheaper.
Winning peace means figuring out how to best support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction. Thus far, the West has invested limited resources into figuring out how to best support Ukraine’s reconstruction. It’s been suggested that the UK and the EU signalled they may use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine – but many legal questions loom around such proposals, and it remains unclear whether those assets would even be enough.
If the West gets stuck on technicalities, or its politicians struggle to justify supporting Ukraine’s reconstruction to their domestic audiences, others could emerge as an alternative for Ukraine – notably China. And indeed, the last few weeks saw more talks between President Zelensky and President Xi about the partnership between these two countries.
From China’s point of view, it makes sense to invest in Ukraine, not only because of the China-Ukraine partnership, which pre-dates the war, but also because Ukraine has now moved up the international agenda, and China wants to step up its role in the region. As for Ukraine, it is reasonable to assume that its key priority will be to get as much and as quickly as possible.
But China’s money comes with strings attached. As the latest Henry Jackson Society report shows, many countries realised that alignment with China can harm other critical diplomatic relationships, limit political autonomy, limit the government’s ability to control national assets, and sometimes even threaten countries’ economic health…
Helena Ivanov and Bob Seely in The Telegraph.
