21 March, 07:21
Wang Yi is a man of impeccable manners and an unchanging expression that serves equally well for sympathy and indifference. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2024, he recited once again what Chinese diplomacy has long refined into a mantra: the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be respected. Ukraine is no exception. China stands for peace. China is not a party to the conflict. China has not taken advantage of the crisis.
Six months after those words, in August 2024, equipment from Chinese company SANY Heavy Industry arrived in occupied Donetsk Oblast — tunneling machines for four mines belonging to the IMPEX-DON structure: Lutuhinska, Progress in Torez, Zorya in Snizhne, Komsomoletsʼ Donbasu in Kirovske. SANY is the world's third-largest manufacturer of heavy machinery. Its founder, Liang Wengen, is a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party. The purpose of the shipment: to sustain coal extraction on Ukrainian soil that Beijing officially does not recognize as Russian.
Both facts exist simultaneously. That is the entire architecture of the arrangement.
A Strategy Without a Name
Diplomatic dictionaries have no term for what China is doing on the Ukrainian territories seized by Russia. Official Beijing does not recognize the annexation. Does not recognize the so-called "new regions" as Russian. Formally upholds the principle of sovereignty. But that formality is precisely the key to understanding everything: legal non-recognition provides ideal cover for economic colonization.
Researchers from the Eastern Human Rights Group and the Institute for Strategic Studies and Security have documented the presence of at least 17 Chinese companies on occupied Ukrainian territory. Seven sectors: mining, metallurgy, construction, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, and education. More than ten documented visits by delegations from China — ranging from businessmen to members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the body that reflects party positions at the middle tier of the hierarchy.
The mechanism of penetration has been refined to a standard procedure. Chinese companies do not arrive on occupied land under their own flags — they enter through Russian intermediary firms that conceal the ultimate beneficiaries and the real suppliers of equipment. The route: manufacturing clusters in Guangdong and Henan provinces — the Manzhouli-Zabaykalsk border crossing — Rostov-on-Don, which has become the main distribution hub. But the most telling part of the chain happens in Kazakhstan, where much of the equipment is reregistered as locally produced goods, and crosses into Russia with its Chinese origin scrubbed clean. Sanctions circumvention has been elevated to an industrial standard.
Coal, Stone, and the "Chinese Quarry"
Chinese presence is most systematically visible in the mining sector of occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. After the severance of ties with Ukrainian and European parts suppliers, the mines found themselves in a technological vacuum — and China filled it without competition.
Following the successful experience with SANY, IMPEX-DON management decided to reorient its entire equipment fleet to Chinese standards. This is not simply a contract — it is a change in the technological DNA of the enterprise for decades to come.
In December 2025, a delegation of Chinese specialists arrived at the Bilorichenska mine in occupied Luhansk Oblast to coordinate the technical parameters for a new longwall. The modernization project is valued at over 1.1 billion rubles — approximately $13.2 million. Financing flows through Russian state development institutions VEB.RF and Promsvyazbank. In other words: Russian state budget money pays for Chinese equipment to modernize a mine on Ukrainian land.
Stone follows coal. In the Telmanivsky district of occupied Donetsk Oblast, a project has taken shape that local functionaries in informal conversations call the "Chinese quarry" — for the dominance of Chinese technology throughout. Two companies, Amma Construction Machinery Shanghai and Zhongxin Heavy Industrial Machinery, supplied equipment for new concrete plants and crushing-and-sorting complexes. Installation was handled through Russian intermediaries, but technical supervision was provided by Chinese engineers. The output of the Karansky quarry has a specific purpose: the reconstruction of Mariupol and the construction of military roads — the Donetsk–Mariupol and Telmanove–Volnovakha routes.
Another Chinese company, Liming Heavy Industry, supplies crushing units and vibrating feeders for the Nadra Group, which controls the extraction of construction materials on the occupied territories. Nadra representative Artyom Zhykharyev personally toured industrial sites in Beijing, Zhengzhou, Jinan, and Taiyuan in 2023. This was not tourism — it was a procurement mission.
Huawei and the Lock Without a Key
If in mining China is one supplier among a narrow field, in telecommunications it is the only one. After Ericsson and Nokia exited the market and local networks were integrated into the Russian digital space, no alternative remained.
The local operator Miranda-Media, which serves as the conduit for Russian telecommunications standards across the captured Ukrainian territories, operates approximately 6,000 base stations manufactured by Huawei. The Chinese corporation also supplies server equipment for the core network — the very backbone of the communications infrastructure.
This means one thing: the regional communications infrastructure is entirely dependent on Chinese updates and technical support. Any future modernization or network expansion will require compatible equipment from the same manufacturer. Under sanctions, this guarantees Huawei a monopoly position for decades — without a single word of legal recognition of the annexation from Beijing.
The Donfrost Plant and the Ghost of Localization
Equally instructive is the story of Donetsk refrigeration equipment plant Donfrost — the former Nord. In 2024, the enterprise completely replaced its Hungarian-made production lines, in operation since the early 1990s, with modern Chinese ones. Officially, the plant claims 82% localization: most components, it says, are produced on-site.
But the key high-tech nodes — compressors and electronic control components — are sourced exclusively from China. Donfrost has become an assembly floor for Chinese technologies. The factory runs, products leave the gates, localization figures look impressive in reports — while technological dependence on China only deepens.
The Yuan as the Currency of Occupation
Alongside the technological lock-in, a financial one is underway. In the so-called "new regions," use of the Chinese yuan is growing rapidly — in both inter-company settlements and retail. In occupied Luhansk Oblast, yuan is officially sold at 79 bank branches. Over 60 to 80 percent of the region's imports consist of Chinese goods. Across Russia-China trade broadly, over 90 percent of settlements now occur in yuan and rubles — bilateral trade volume reached a record $220 billion in 2024.
The primary financial operator of Chinese-Russian interaction on the captured territories is Promsvyazbank. In November 2024, PSB organized a trip for a large group of businesspeople from the so-called "new regions" to the China International Import Expo in Shanghai. Agreements were reached there on the supply of port equipment manufactured by ZPMC — the world's largest producer of cranes and terminal systems.
Since major Chinese banks frequently block direct payments from Russia, the business of the occupied territories has shifted to alternative instruments. WeChat Pay — for small and medium transactions outside the SWIFT system. The stablecoin USDT — for payment on large shipments; intermediary commissions on such transactions reach 8 to 15 percent, but the absence of competitors and the high margins of the business more than compensate.
The Great Builders and the Belt
The reconstruction of Mariupol's devastated infrastructure and the construction of new residential districts in Donetsk open enormous space for Chinese state construction corporations. In 2024, the first Russian-Chinese Construction Forum was held in Heilongjiang Province, where a delegation of the so-called "DPR," led by its "prime minister" Yevhen Solntsev, presented its "investment potential." Among those expressing interest: Genertec International and China Xinxing Group, both under direct control of the Chinese government.
But the largest geopolitical project is something else entirely. Russia is actively promoting the inclusion of the captured Ukrainian territories in the Europe-Western China transport corridor — a nine-thousand-kilometer route under the Belt and Road Initiative. Within Russia, the corridor links Moscow, Kazan, and Samara. Beyond Russia's border, a highway is being built: Rostov-on-Don–Mariupol–Melitopol–Simferopol, 635 kilometers through captured Ukrainian land. If Beijing agrees, these territories become a nodal point of Chinese transport architecture — regardless of any future legal status.
In October 2023, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, a delegation of the so-called "DPR" signed an agreement with Beijing Andora Technology — for the supply of energy equipment and the prospect of localizing production in Donetsk. For Beijing, this is a test case: relocating manufacturing capacity to regions with cheap electricity and guaranteed demand, under the cover of private investment status.
Calligraphy in Luhansk
In occupied Luhansk, a Chinese language learning center has opened — with calligraphy classes and tea ceremonies. This is not cultural diplomacy for appearances. It is a calculation for the long-term presence of Chinese specialists and managers who will need to live and work there for years. The delegations from China visiting captured Ukrainian cities include not only businesspeople but members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference — a marker of party-level endorsement of these contacts within the middle tier of the CCP hierarchy.
In October 2025, a Chinese representative openly participated in the Third New Silk Road Forum on the occupied Crimean Peninsula. Attendees included representatives of large and medium-sized Chinese businesses and local officials. The stated goal: strengthening economic cooperation and "enhancing Crimea's international image."
"Strategic Ambiguity" and Its Price
Official Beijing describes its position with a term that resists clean translation: "strategic ambiguity." The state formally distances itself — while encouraging provincial and private initiatives. SANY is formally a private company — but its founder is a CCP member, and shipments into a conflict zone carry the character of strategic support, not commercial adventure. Beijing Andora Technology signs agreements with occupation "administrations" under the rubric of "private investment" — but does so at the Eastern Economic Forum, where the Kremlin puts its control over the "new regions" on display.
In May 2024, Beijing and Brazil presented a second "peace plan" — and in it, quietly, the clause on respect for territorial integrity had disappeared. It had been present in the first version from 2023. When journalists asked MFA spokeswoman Mao Ning about the activities of Chinese companies in the energy and agricultural sectors of the captured Ukrainian territories, she replied that she was "not familiar with the circumstances mentioned."
Unfamiliarity as diplomatic position — that too is an art form.
In July 2025, Wang Yi told European Commission Vice-President Kaja Kallas what had long been legible between the lines of official statements: Beijing does not want to see Russia lose in Ukraine. Not for ideological reasons — for pragmatic ones: if Moscow loses, Washington will focus on China.
Technological Lock-In as Strategy
The cumulative effect of everything described above is not simply business conducted under conditions of war. It is the systematic technological, financial, and logistical binding of the captured Ukrainian territories into Chinese supply chains. Telecommunications infrastructure — Huawei, for which no replacement is possible under sanctions. Mining equipment — Chinese standards, to which entire fleets have already been reoriented. Financial settlements — yuan and crypto schemes outside SWIFT. Construction base — Chinese technologies in the concrete of Mariupol.
This means that deoccupation of these lands — even in some hypothetical future — would require not only the withdrawal of Russian forces. It would require the dismantling of all the infrastructure built with Chinese participation. And that is precisely Beijing's most valuable asset in this game: without legally recognizing the annexation, it renders it irreversible in technological terms.
Wang Yi, meanwhile, continues to repeat at conferences that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be respected. And that China stands for peace. Ukraine is no exception.
The tunneling machines in the mines of occupied Donetsk Oblast confirm every word — in silence.