US Weapons and Chinese Cash Compete for Influence in UkraineАмериканська зброя і китайські гроші змагаються за Україну.
Amid the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing proxy war in the eastern Donbas region, Chinese infrastructure investments in Ukraine collectively dwarf the total value of the long-awaited U.S. weapons deal.
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Chinese projects include a $500 million loan from China’s CCEC trading firm—announced Dec. 22, the same day as the U.S. Javelin deal—to finance affordable housing for, among others, Ukrainian war veterans and people displaced by the conflict in the Donbas.As China’s economic clout in Ukraine grows, it could mean a loss of U.S. influence, some experts say, possibly even playing to Moscow’s advantage.
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If Chinese investment and Russian aggression in Eastern Europe are not matched by corresponding U.S. economic and military measures in coming years, the U.S. and its partners risk ceding influence in the region to hostile revanchist powers,” Franklin Holcomb, a Russia and Ukraine analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told The Daily Signal in an earlier interview.
http://dailysignal.com/2018/01/08/us-weapons-chinese-cash-compete-influence-ukraine/http://www.newsweek.com/trump-and-putin-distracted-xi-moves-ukraine-781716
