Motor Sich is one of Ukraine’s great assets, employing 20,000 people in the southeastern industrial city of Zaporizhia to make engines for helicopters and airplanes, both civilian and military, and for cruise missiles. It is also in great need of investment.
But Ukraine should refuse, on national security grounds, Beijing Skyrizon Aviation’s attempt to acquire the company. China has been no friend of Ukraine in Russia’s war. Not only has China refused to adopt Western sanctions against the Kremlin, it has increased its trade and ties with Ukraine’s enemy.
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton was right to visit Kyiv on Aug. 27 and warn Ukraine against letting the sale go through.
“Military and sensitive technologies should not reach enemies or potential enemies,” Bolton told the Evropeiska Pravda website. “We inform friends and partners about the danger of Chinese investment.” If Motor Sich is Chinese-owned, it could end up supplying Russia’s military openly or, more likely, secretly — an unthinkable turn of events for a nation that has lost 7 percent of its territory and 13,000 citizens to Russia’s war. While Ukraine banned military exports to Russia in 2017, the suspicions are that Motor Sich’s products ended up in Russia through other intermediary nations.
Moreover, few details of the deal have been disclosed due to the strict and often excessive secrecy of Ukraine’s defense industry. Ultimately, President Volodymyr Zelensky will have to decide whether the purchase spearheaded by Chinese businessman Wang Jing should go through.
Ukraine’s Western partners need to come up with an alternative investor for Motor Sich. Still, this should really be an easy call for Ukraine. An aspiring NATO member that is reliant on billions of dollars in Western assistance, put up by nations that have sacrificed economically by imposing sanctions on Russia, must choose the side of democracy. And that is not the side that China is on.
