The Chinese authorities demanded that Ukraine take into account the interests of Chinese companies after Kiev decided to return the Motor Sich aircraft engine enterprise to state ownership. This was announced on Friday, March 12, by the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Zhao Lijian.
“We demand that Ukraine take into account the legal rights of Chinese enterprises and investors,” he told TASS.
On the eve, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine decided to return the Zaporozhye enterprise for the production of gas turbine engines for aviation “Motor Sich” to the ownership of the state.
The owner of the Chinese Skyrizon Aircraft Holdings Wang Jing, commenting on the actions of the Ukrainian authorities, declared that such decisions were inadmissible to the detriment of Chinese investors and threatened the Ukrainian side with proceedings in an international court, Interfax reports.
On January 29, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree, according to which the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of the country to impose sanctions against four Chinese companies and Wang Jin himself, a shareholder of Skyrizon, an investor company Motor Sich, is put into effect. The term of the sanctions is three years.
Vyacheslav Boguslaev, President of the Ukrainian company Motor Sich, headed this association in 1988, and it was soon incorporated under his leadership. In 2017, the controlling stake in the enterprise passed to the PRC companies.
In 2018, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) suspected Boguslaev of illegally selling more than 50% of the company’s shares to Chinese investors. The Ukrainian court arrested the shares at the request of the SBU. The department then reported that representatives of foreign states “contrary to Ukrainian law” acquired a controlling stake in the company, registered for six offshore companies and an individual. The SBU suggested that the new owners wanted to attempt to destroy the enterprise.
Motor Sich develops, manufactures and services aircraft gas turbine engines and industrial gas turbine units. In 2014, the company found itself in a crisis situation after Kiev refused to sell its products to its main customer – Russian enterprises in Russia.