Is a security agreement with China possible — explains the Director of Security Programs at the Ukrainian Prism

During his press conference on July 15, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine plans to sign security agreements with nine more countries, bringing the total number to 32.

China remains one of the most «difficult» countries for Ukraine due to its close relations with Russia and its supply of certain components to Russia. Hanna Shelest, Director of Security Programs at the Foreign Policy Council «Ukrainian Prism,» shared her thoughts on whether a security agreement between Ukraine and China is possible on Hromadske Radio.

«At the moment, I do not see any sense and logic in this. Even before the war with Russia started in 2014, Ukraine had strategic partnership agreements with China that never worked and did not correspond to reality. But China was our largest individual trading partner, albeit smaller than the EU.»

According to Shelest, during the first year after the full-scale invasion began, China took a relatively neutral stance. Beijing was more interested in its own conflicts with the United States.

«China even proposed its own ‘peace plan,’ and everyone thought that a neutral China was the best thing for Ukraine. Even back then, at the talks in Istanbul in April 2022, and later, when Ukraine started talking about security guarantees, we talked about involving China. To be honest, I did not see any positive reaction or desire from Beijing», — says the director of security programs.

She says that China is partially a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum. The country signed the document separately and a little later, and added some comments on the details that did not suit it. According to Shelest, the only issue in which China has influenced Russia is the reduction of Moscow’s nuclear rhetoric.

«But in 2024, we see a Chinese position that is, in fact, absolutely pro-Russian. We have not yet seen any arms deliveries, but we do see deliveries of a large number of components. We see visits by Xi Jinping and Putin, the signing of agreements between them. We see that the Russian economy is holding up, in part, thanks to China, that China prioritizes Moscow over Kyiv. Chinese representatives attended only one meeting on the ‘peace formula.’

China does not benefit from this war, but it does not want to become a guarantor of Ukraine’s security, so it will definitely not sign such a security agreement. All the agreements that Ukraine has signed are about military assistance, membership in the alliance, and assistance in the event of another attack. And, as we have seen over these 2.5 years, this is something that China is not going to support at all», — Shelest says.

In her opinion, China may sign a conditional future peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia when it is concluded. For now, China will continue to trade with Russia within the framework that will allow it to avoid sanctions and will not support Ukraine, Shelest added.