China Won’t Let Russia Starve the World

Thwarted on the battlefield, Russia has spent months trying to upend the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the fragile wartime agreement that, so far, has eased global food prices and brought succor to farmers in Ukraine and to bellies everywhere. Like clockwork, Moscow has again and again tried to hold Ukraine’s food exports hostage—the latest extension to the Black Sea export deal was set to expire Thursday.

But it’s complicated. A longtime buyer of Ukrainian grain, China has been the biggest beneficiary of the grain deal, snapping up some 7 million metric tons—or nearly one-quarter—of the total exports unlocked under the initiative. Russia can stand on the neck of its neighbor, or play nice with its new best friend—but not both.

“China is far and away the greatest recipient of any grain that’s exported from Ukraine under the deal” and “has a strong interest in the continuation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” said Caitlin Welsh, the director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

That has been a problem for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose hands are now tied by the concerns of Russia’s key ally. It’s not just China, either. Turkey, one of the few countries that has dodged Western sanctions and stayed in Moscow’s good graces, is the third-largest beneficiary of the initiative and also has a vested interest in the deal’s continuation. That further limits Moscow’s leverage and underscores its uneven dynamic with both Recep Tayyip Erdogan, still Turkey’s president, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“Politically, the deal became a liability to Russia,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a visiting fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations and a former Russian Central Bank official. “It shows very vividly that Putin needs Erdogan and Xi more than they need Putin.” 

The U.N.-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative was signed in July 2022 as a diplomatic effort to ease global food prices that skyrocketed in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which disrupted both wheat exports and fertilizer production. Since taking effect, the deal has allowed more than 30 million metric tons of exports to reach global markets, nearly half of which have gone to developing countries. But Moscow’s repeated attempts to extract new concessions and pressure Ukraine—while avoiding stepping on China’s toes—has turned each expiration of the deal into a game of brinksmanship that Washington can only marvel at.

The tensions have been in full force in recent weeks as diplomats scrambled yet again to extend the deal ahead of its expiration on Thursday. The worst-case scenario was averted: Erdogan announced Wednesday that negotiators secured a two-month extension. But that carries its own costs: The continual short-term nature of the export deal’s renewals means that food producers, distributors, and exporters have a hard time planning ahead. Russia, as before, attempted to leverage more Ukrainian food against an easing of sanctions that have impacted its own agriculture sector; it has especially pushed for the reopening of a Russian ammonia pipeline (used in fertilizer production) that runs through Ukraine. But it’s hard to ignore your key partners’ wishes. 

Russia’s calculus hinges on “how much do they want to keep their own allies happy,” said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and a former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Beijing can get grain, for now, from Australia and other sources in the south. But Ukraine remains a black-soil breadbasket. “I think terminating the agreement would be viewed very negatively by China and by other developing countries.”

China’s interests weigh heavily in Russian calculations because China has been Moscow’s key partner since its invasion of Ukraine, with the two growing increasingly politically and economically intertwined. Beijing has stressed the importance of the grain deal’s continuation in the past, even including it in its 12-point peace plan.

Refusing to extend the agreement could add new strains to Moscow’s relationship with Beijing. The furthest Russia has gone is briefly suspending its involvement in October, although it backtracked days later. Christopher Barrett, an agricultural economist at Cornell University, said in March that Russia’s complete withdrawal could jeopardize its relationship with grain-importing countries, such as China.

“While they’ve been willing to not speak out against Russian aggression in international fora,” he said, “one naturally wonders how long will they keep up that tacit support for Russia, if Russia starts directly hurting their economies and their people?” 

Still, Russia has done what it can to strangle Ukraine’s agricultural sector. In negotiations in March, Moscow only agreed to extend the deal for 60 days, just half the length of the previous extension. Experts warn that a truncated extension compounds pressures facing Ukrainian producers, who are already struggling to cope with lower prices and ongoing shipping and inspection challenges.

“I don’t think Russia really has the capacity to refuse to extend the agreement,” Barrett said. “It’s just trying to complicate things for Ukraine as much as it can.”

Beyond throttling Ukrainian producers, Russia’s efforts have also threatened European Union solidarity for Kyiv. Last month, several Eastern European countries moved to ban Ukrainian grain imports to shore up political support among enraged local farmers.

“One way or the other, Ukraine is suffering out of this,” said Glauber, who said that both production and overall exports are down again this year. “The long-term impacts of the war have really had a pretty big blow for Ukraine’s agriculture.”