China`s Strategic Interest Is Only in European Georgia

2026-06-11

The Georgia-China trade turnover will amount to approximately 2 billion USD by 2025, which is undoubtedly a positive development – ​​1/4 of which will come from Georgian exports, 3/4 from Chinese imports.

The Chinese market will easily accept 10 times more worth of products from Georgia if possible, and will also export 10 times more to Georgia if there is a corresponding demand.

Nevertheless, intensive trade does not mean that China’s interest in Georgia, the Caucasus, and the Caspian/Black Sea region in general will be strategic and without alternative.

Without Georgia’s European future, China is not so interested in Russia’s backyard, because it has established supply chains to Europe even without the Black Sea.

1) China participates in the capital of 12 leading ports around Western Europe – from Piraeus to Hamburg, it has not yet gained a foothold in Poland, the port of Danzig, nor in Scandinavia, nor in the Baltics, but it has fully developed supply and logistics networks in Western Europe – it is also included in the capital of previously built and fully operational ports, but China has not participated in the construction of any of them.

2) Due to the war in Ukraine, and therefore the closure of the border between Russia and the European Union, China has lost its supply chain to Eastern Europe via the railway through Russia. This is precisely why it has become interested in the Black Sea, which is a closed sea – i.e. in reality a lake.

3) China does not dare to offer Turkey the construction of a joint port or ask to join the capital of an operating port. Accordingly, the Caucasus and Georgia remain the only alternative corridors.

4) The Anaklia tender, in which China participated under special conditions, was held in March 2024, i.e. after Georgia was granted candidate status (December 2023), i.e. if you are going to the European Union, we will support you.

5) In May 2024, Russia officially adopted the so-called “Russian law” for Tbilisi, due to which the candidate status was de facto suspended, and China said that if you really do not want to join the European Union, we cannot force you.

6) China will not enter into a confrontation with Russia over Georgia, it is not worth participating in the construction of Anaklia, Anaklia is not a functioning port to think about entering the capital, that is why it is inventing new demands.

China will only be interested in a non-Russian Caucasus that will be part of the European Single Trade and Economic Space (i.e. all three countries will have an association agreement with the EU), or in a Caucasus in which the EU will start at least at the Azerbaijan-Georgia border.

Author: Archil Iakobashvili – Professor of Economics, Member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany

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