Ukraine should turn towards China

As Ukraine is prepared to meet its new president experts and diplomats chat deciding where Mr Yanukovich, the most likely candidate, will go for the first international visit. Certainly, the most likely win destinations are Brussels and Moscow. Previous president Yushchenko went first to Moscow to turn Ukrainian-Russian relations in a 5 year confrontation and misunderstanding. Some say that Yanukovich will go first to Brussels. To do the same to Ukraine-EU relations? We think that it is not that important where the president will go first. It will be rather important what follows. However, we would like the new president to consider an alternative destination to the Moscow-Brussels axis.

Just consider Ukraine’s neighbours Moldova and Belarus and their recent successes with Beijing. China last July signed a memorandum of understanding to lend Moldova $1 billion — equal to a tenth of the east European country’s gross domestic product, and easily the biggest loan it will have received from anywhere. Last June, it agreed to invest more than $1 billion to build power plants and roads in Tajikistan, an impoverished ex-Soviet state with limited natural resources. In March, China’s central bank agreed a three-year currency swap worth 20 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) with another former Soviet republic, Belarus.