ToThe Ukrainian conflict and the Chinese settlement plan occupied a special place on the agenda of the talks, as Alexander Lukashenko spoke with Xi Jinping in China Alexander Lukashenko met with the top leadership of China in Beijing. Why his trip took place right now and what results the parties expect from it, RBC understood
Alexander Lukashenko and Xi Jinping
On February 28, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko began a three-day visit to China. On March 1, he met in Beijing with the top leadership of the People’s Republic of China (PRC): Premier of the State Council Li Keqiang, Head of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Li Zhanshu and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Over the past 13 years, Lukashenko and Xi have held 12 meetings, mainly during the visits of the Belarusian president to China and on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); in 2015, Xi Jinping visited Minsk.
At the last meeting, in September 2022 at the SCO summit in Samarkand, they raised the level of bilateral relations to the status of an all-weather and comprehensive strategic partnership (for comparison, China’s relations with Russia have the status of a comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction).
The term “all-weather” in this case is not political, but rather emotional, says Kirill Babayev, director of the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “It means that no matter what happens in international relations, Belarus and China have no contradictions and remain partners,” the expert explained to RBC.Belarus and China really have no contradictions either in the political or economic sense. They have neither a common border, nor any difficulties with economic interaction, so they can continue to cooperate in any scenario.
In Beijing, the parties confirmed their intention to strengthen “political mutual trust and practical cooperation”. According to Xi Jinping, the new status of relations obliges to fill them with new content. In the joint declaration adopted following the meeting on the further development of exemplary relations of the all-weather andThe comprehensive strategic partnership of Belarus and China in the new era”mentions many aspects of such a partnership: from the expansion of direct ties, transport and logistics, trade, financial, scientific and technical cooperation to defense and security, sustainable and global development and integration within the SCO.
The two leaders agreed, in particular, to use national currencies more actively in bilateral relations, supply each other with high-quality agricultural products, develop the Chinese-Belarusian industrial park and conduct scientific research together, strengthen cooperation in the field of defense and interact within the SCO (Minsk applied for membership in the organization in 2022, Beijing supported its accelerated entry).
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The document notes that while Belarus fully adheres to the principle of “one China”, the PRC opposes any external interference in the internal affairs of the republic. Both sides opposed any manifestations of hegemonism and the policy of brute force, including illegitimate unilateral sanctions and coercive measures.
What are the common interests of China and Belarus
On February 28, the leadership of Belarus announced that the parties would sign a block of powerful documents that would create a structure of relations for the next 5 to 10 years. Minsk is placing a big bet on trade and the economy: Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Snopkov said that Belarus and China will create a de facto free trade zone in services and investments.
China is one of the three main trading partners of Belarus. In 2022, the trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $5.79 billion (figures and quotes from the Belarusian side here and further, according to the state agency BelTA); according to Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Snopkov, in 2023 this figure will be even higher, since for the first one and a half The two countries have already reached about a billion in joint trade turnover. An important role here will be played by the export of Belarusian potash fertilizers (this is one of the key exports of the republic, the European Union has affected this industry in several packages of sanctions).
In Chinese foreign trade, Belarus, according to the World Bank for 2020, accounted for only 0.12%.
On the eve of the visit, the Belarusian president proposed to combine the industrial potentials of Belarus, Russia and China.
For Lukashenko, China has always been one of the key areas of foreign policy, said Vasily Kashin, director of the HSE Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies. “Beijing was a source of investments and loans for Belarus, and in general, the main direction of cooperation was to attract Chinese investment in industrial projects focused on exporting products to the Russian marketthe market », — recalled in an interview with RBC expert. For China, an important aspect of cooperation was overland transit, that is, the main Chinese overland transit went through Russia, then through Belarus, now this cooperation is called into question by sanctions and counter-sanctions, the expert notes. According to the analyst, although the economic importance of Belarus for China has now become less, its political significance is still important.
Lukashenko is one of the few heads of state who actively supported the initiative of the PRC to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. “We are glad that China, this ancient people, is finally beginning to play a decisive role on our planet,” he said in an interview with Xinhua. He confirmed this position on March 1 in Beijing at a meeting with Xi.
Russia also reacted positively to the Chinese initiative, but noted that there are no conditions for negotiations yet; the reason is that Moscow is not particularly interested in seeing this initiative as pro-Russian, Kashin draws attention, noting that the idea is aimed primarily at such small countries closely connected with China as Belarus. According to his assessment,China will gather supporters of the initiative under its banners and will organize a vote in the UN General Assembly on this basis. “Relations with China are valuable for Belarus, support for one or another of its initiatives costs nothing, but allows you to get practical benefits in relations with the Chinese,” Kashin summed up.
How is Chinese influence expanding
While Belarusian and Chinese state agencies focused on the topic of bilateral partnership, Western media focused on the geopolitical component of the visit, labeling Lukashenko as a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The representative of the US State Department , Ned Price , at a briefing on February 27 , expressedconcern about the rapprochement of China and Belarus. “The fact that China is now interacting with Lukashenka, who, in fact, has ceded his sovereignty to Russia, is another element of China’s deepening interaction with Russia, with all those who participate and support Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine,” Price said.
Given that Moscow is close to Beijing, and Minsk is close to Moscow, this suggests that China’s sphere of influence is expanding up to the borders of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, notes the Silk Road Briefing resource, which analyzes the development of the Chinese global initiative “One Belt— One Way”. “While US President Joe Biden warned against arms supplies to Russia, Belarus remains an option [for such supplies],” the author of the article, chairman of the board of the consulting company Dezan Shira and Associates Chris emphasizesDevonshire-Ellis.— Ukraine will definitely be a topic of discussion in Beijing. Although it will probably be about longer-term strategic [arms supplies].” The expert also notes that China also has an economic interest, since under the conditions of sanctions Minsk seeks to reorient its exports to eastern markets. For China, due to the ongoing development of free trade agreements in the Eurasian Economic Union, Belarus is becoming a key link in the development of Russian-Chinese Eurasian trade.
What is Lukashenka’s line
Since the beginning of the new year, Lukashenko has already visited Zimbabwe and the UAE, received Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in Minsk and announced a visit to Iran in mid-March.
Trips to China and Iran will be imbued with the idea of diversifying Belarusian trade, said Artem Shraibman, an invited expert of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; moreover, China is a much more important direction for Lukashenko. “Belarus sold $1.8 billion worth of goods there last year, mainly potash fertilizers and food. In addition, Minsk has started joining theThe Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a pan-Asian structure with obvious leadership from Beijing, and this process should be completed in 2023, the expert notes.However, the scale of all these issues, with rare exceptions, does not require visits at the highest level. And all the more so they are disproportionate to the noise that Belarusian propaganda raises around them.
According to Schreibman, Lukashenka’s visits have a “demonstration purpose” to show that “Minsk has friends outside of the usual Russia”.
Babayev believes that the current visit is extremely important for Belarus, because today it is “in absolute isolation from the outside world” and Lukashenka needs a meeting with the leader of one of the leading world powers. “But the visit is also very important for China, because in the global confrontation Belarus is in the camp of supporters of Russia and at the same time is not a direct participant in the conflict,” the expert summarizes.”China needs to understand if Belarus will continue to adhere to this approach.”
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