China cancels Belarusian freight locomotive order due to fear of sanctions

China is no longer supplying Belarusian Railways with 15 ordered locomotives. The locomotives contain American components that are not allowed to be exported to Belarus, and now Chinese manufacturer CRRC is turning away from the deal.

“China has abandoned its initial plans […] to produce and supply 15 single-section electric freight locomotives to the Belarusian Railways” writes the Belarusian Association of Railway Workers on its website.

CRRC “did not provide a commercial proposal due to the presence of American parts in the locomotives”, the association writes. “In July 2024 [it] indicated the impossibility of further progressing the project due to sanctions concerns and proposed to return to the implementation of the project after the ‘normalization of the situation’.”

In other words, CRRC is seeing sanctions on the horizon, in case it were to supply locomotives to Belarus. It wants to wait out a cancellation of the sanctions before it risks harming its own business.

Sanctions hurt rail industry

Nevertheless, the company made an effort to evade the sanctions initially. The Belarusian association claims that CRRC examined options to replace the American parts. “But, given the share of their use in the final product, it is practically unrealistic to implement this. The manufacturer itself admits this”, writes the rail workers’ association. CRRC reportedly carefully stated that such a process could take many years, without a guarantee for success.

Sanctions are increasingly affecting the Russian and Belarusian sectors. Russia has been struggling with locomotive maintenance due to a lack of available spare parts, for example. Moreover, its neighbour Georgia cancelled a locomotive purchase deal and opted for Chinese locomotives instead for the Baku – Tbilisi – Kars line, also citing sanction concerns.