By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
Last month, I wrote a commentary criticizing the use of Chinese spare parts for Ukrainian drones. The trigger was the EU’s decision to exceptionally allow Ukraine to use two billion euros from the funds it provides to procure Chinese components for the drones it manufactures. The news, published in the Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/
A few days after the publication of the news, a Swedish entrepreneur wrote a letter to the Financial Times praising Brussels for its decision to allow Ukraine to purchase components from China, for the very simple reason that if it does not buy them from the Chinese, it will run out of drones. At the same time, however, he called for the creation of a sufficient industrial base to fill gaps in European and Ukrainian industry, particularly in the sector of small magnets, where China currently holds a near-monopoly https://www.ft.com/content/
China holds a dominant position in the global drone industry, supplies the entire world, and is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to bypass it. Chinese components are absolutely critical for Ukrainian drones, just as they are for Russian ones. This is not unknown; it is a widely recognized issue. Indeed, the provision of Chinese components for Ukrainian drones was raised during a panel discussion on Donbas held as part of the Sovintern conference last April in Moscow. For years, moreover, the need to end Ukraine’s dependence on China for drones has been vigorously debated. Indicatively: https://www.euractiv.com/news/
The issue of providing Chinese components for Ukrainian drones has, naturally, provoked the anger of Moscow, which has made relevant demarches to Beijing. The Chinese responded that they cannot control the supply chains through which Ukraine obtains components for its drones—a response met with skepticism by the Russians. Moscow hopes, however, that Beijing will eventually exercise somewhat better control over who is the final recipient of the components it sells. China appears to be already taking measures for tighter control over its supply chains.
While Russia does not publicly raise the issue, it is brought up, and in very aggressive tones, by the “voenny (military) bloggers.” Some even openly and very aggressively accuse China of cynicism and betrayal.
International reports indicate that between 85% and 90% of the components of Ukrainian FPV drones are of Chinese origin. They include power systems (such as lithium-ion cells, high-discharge LiPo [lithium polymer] batteries, and power distribution boards), brushless electric motors for propulsion and servomechanisms, electronic speed controllers and flight controller boards, CMOS [Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor] navigation cameras, thermal sensors, fiber optic dispensers, and basic RF [radio frequency] transceiver modules. Furthermore, drone manufacturing plants in Ukraine and Europe are exclusively supplied by China with rare-earth magnets for motors, synthetic graphite for battery anodes, and specialized carbon fibers. It should be noted that Russia has a similar dependence on China. It has even been reported that at one of the main factories producing such components, the hosts make sure the Russians have left through the front door before the Ukrainians enter through the back one.
The world has the drums beating, and we have our secret pride.
Why am I writing this now? Because my friend P.K. read my original article, in which I criticized Ukraine’s supply with Chinese components, and was outraged. P.K. (like myself) does not like China selling drone components to Ukraine.
P.K. knows me very well, for a long time, and we have collaborated on various issues. He could easily have called me and asked for information and clarifications on the matter. He could have asked his many friends in Moscow. He could also have done a Google search or used Chinese or Western AI. He would have easily discovered the significance of Chinese components for Ukrainian drones, which, as we know, are now the primary weapon for attacks on the Russian heartland. This is what has brought China’s commercial interests into potential conflict with the needs of solidarity towards a Russia that is under comprehensive attack by NATO.
Instead of doing any of that, he sat down and wrote unfortunately an aggressive and completely inaccurate commentary against me! In his commentary, P.K. writes that Germany, the EU, and Britain are providing or funding the construction of hundreds of thousands of drones. The West, he is writing, is the sole aggressor against Russia, not China!
Naturally, nowhere did I write, nor could I have written, that China is attacking Russia. The only thing I wrote is the indisputable fact that Ukraine wants to buy (as it is already doing) additional Chinese components worth two billion for the drones it manufactures because it cannot find them elsewhere, and this is the reason the EU allowed such a transaction. Such Chinese components are also essential for the European drone manufacturing industry.
Let me reiterate, so that we are clear. The issue under consideration is not who manufactures and supplies Ukraine with drones. It is that these drones use Chinese components that no one other than China manufactures.
The second point raised by P.K. is that I cite only one source of information, and that is a Ukrainian publication. Since the source is Ukrainian, he claims it is lying and that what it writes is 100% paid propaganda by Western intelligence services.
Thank goodness Stalin is dead (although Stalinism and western McCarthyism are not), because otherwise, as a carrier of 100% Western intelligence-paid propaganda, I am not very sure my head would still be on my shoulders for long.
First, the Ukrainian publication is not the only source I cite. I also cite diplomatic sources. I have been practicing journalism for several decades, and no one has ever challenged the validity of my sources.
But that is not even the point. The Ukrainian publication is not the source of my information, as anyone who carefully reads my article would readily understand. The source is the Financial Times publication https://www.ft.com/content/
I did indeed use the Ukrainian publication because it republished almost all the main points of the Financial Times’ article, which is behind a paywall and requires readers to pay to read it.
P.K. continues by writing that the only ones with an interest in cultivating distrust between Russia and China are “Trump’s gang and the collective West in cooperation with Russian oligarchs and the Western-oriented Russian elite.”
On this point, he is right. Except that both Russia and China know very well whether Ukrainian drones are equipped with Chinese components. No article by me or anybody else in the world can cause distrust between them. The only thing that can indeed cause distrust is the continued provision of these components.
Given what is happening in Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, Cuba, the threats even against Canada and Greenland, the US-led dismantling of the entire arms control system, and the war of the major multinationals and the US against natural capital and the civilization of all humanity, it is easy to conclude that humanity faces a threat far worse than that posed by the rise of Nazism—the most dangerous in the history of our species—because it now possesses productive forces and means of destruction that can threaten the very preservation of life on the planet. To counter such a threat, an iron unity of all opposing forces worldwide is required. Opportunism in this arena will lead to disaster, potentially for all of humanity. This is also the reason I wrote the article criticizing Chinese practice on the drone issue, especially when drones have become Kiev’s primary weapon.
As for P.K.’s suggestion that I should reconsider, I have to return it to him.