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China to Welcome Belarusian Leader, Raising Concerns Over Ukraine


As officials in Ukraine anxiously watch the burgeoning diplomatic negotiations between Moscow and Beijing, China’s top leader will host the president of Belarus – a staunch Kremlin ally – with a state visit next week.

On Saturday, China visit notice, will take place over three days starting Tuesday, for President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, who a year ago allowed Russian forces to use his country as a springboard for an all-out invasion of Ukraine. . The presence in Beijing of such a close partner of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin would likely increase international attention and pressure on China’s unruly stance in the war.

Beijing’s latest high-profile official guest announcement comes a week after the Biden administration accused China of considering sending lethal military aid to Russia, a claim Chinese officials have said. rejected. If China were to send weapons and ammunition to Moscow’s units in eastern Ukraine, supplies would come at a time when both sides are running out of much-needed artillery.

And after Beijing laid out general principles on Friday to try to end the war in Ukraine, Western leaders expressed frustration at the lack of more concrete ideas in their proposals, or any indication that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, may be willing to distance himself from Mr. Putin.

Mr. Lukashenko’s office said in a statement that his visit to China will be an opportunity to provide “a response to the acute challenges in the modern international environment.”

In a phone call with Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Aleinik on Friday, his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, said that Beijing wants to strengthen ties between the two nations and find common ground on the protracted war. a Russian year in Ukraine. according to a summary issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China.

Mr. Qin noted that when they met last year, Mr. Lukashenko and Mr. Xi announced a “comprehensive all-weather strategic partnership” between their countries. Pakistan is the only other country to which China has promised such a majestic-sounding level of formal cooperation.

Mr. Qin said that Beijing “opposes the interference of external forces in the internal affairs of Belarus and the illegal imposition of unilateral sanctions on Belarus”, the country has suffered. extensive Western sanctions for supporting Russia.

Yauheni PreihermanThe director of the Minsk Dialogue Council on International Relations, said in a written response to questions that “Minsk has long considered China an important foreign policy and economic partner, and has, therefore, invested invest a lot of time and political effort into deepening ties with Beijing.”

“But in the current conditions of unprecedented Western sanctions against Belarus,” he added, “China’s importance to Minsk has grown even more.”

Mr. Lukashenko appears to be primarily interested in securing more investment and business deals, Mr. Preiherman said. “Cooperation in the field of military-industrial complex can certainly be a part of that, especially since the two countries have a history of cooperation in this area,” he said.

China can derive symbolic and practical benefits from closer ties with Belarus.

“Because Belarus is so close to Russia and close to the battlefield, Lukashenko has exclusive information about the situation on the battlefield,” Preiherman said. “I’m sure this will be of particular interest to leaders in Beijing.”

However, while China has attempted to stabilize relations with the United States and other Western countries with limited success in recent months, Lukashenko will be the latest of a number of authoritarian partners. China has recently been courted by Beijing – a sign that Mr. Xi is far from making a major shift in Chinese allegiance.

This month, Xi received Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, telling him that China “opposes external forces to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs and undermine Iran’s security and stability, ” according to XinhuaChina’s official news agency. Other visitors to Beijing this month Hun Sen, Cambodia’s prime minister, is a longtime supporter of China in the region.

Relations between Belarus and China have been strained in previous years Belarus’s Disappointing Hope for Chinese investment and trade expansion, has grown closer since the Russian invasion, according to a research paper by Eurasian countries in the Center for Transformation Studies.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Friday that he also wanted to meet Xi in person to discuss Beijing’s proposals to end the war. There is no official response for his overture.

The Ukrainian leader has been trying for months to get Xi to engage in face-to-face dialogue, to no avail. But Mr. Zelensky’s government has continued to take cautious steps when it comes to what it says publicly regarding China, acutely aware that if Beijing plays a stronger role in backing the military, Russia, they can fundamentally change the dynamics on the battlefield.

Immediately after the announcement of Lukashenko’s visit, Mykhailo Podolyak, Zelensky’s senior adviser, issued a statement suggesting that siding with Russia is not in China’s strategic interest.

“You don’t bet on an aggressor who broke international law and will lose the war,” he wrote on Twitter. “This is shortsighted.”

Belarus has maneuvered carefully over the last year, providing safe havens, training grounds and launch pads for Moscow’s forces while staunchly refusing to send its troops into battle. Ukrainian officials and military analysts have said that there is no evidence that Russian forces are currently planning ground attacks from the country, but military activity there has always been a source of con fear.

Officials in Kiev, Washington and other capitals will be watching closely for any sign that China’s political support for Lukashenko translates into closer cooperation on military and political issues. technology, with implications for the Ukrainian battlefield. Belarus has been producing multiple rocket launchers “Polonez”, What does the experts say used improved Chinese-made missiles.

Belarus has been develop your own rocket for the Polonez launcher, but has shown a desire to attract military support from China, in part to offset Russia’s dominance. In the joint statement signed last year, Mr. Lukashenko and Mr. Xi promised to “further expand practical cooperation in all fields between the militaries of the two countries”.

For Mr. Lukashenko, China can also help offset his reliance on Russia for financial, energy and security support to keep him in power. Russian dominance over Belarus expanded after large-scale protests in 2020 and only increased throughout the war.

There is still no sign that Mr. Lukashenko will send his troops to fight in Ukraine, as he may be wary that such a move could provoke a domestic backlash.

When he met Putin in Moscow earlier this month, there were hints of an imbalance in the relationship between the Kremlin and Lukashenko.

After Putin thanked Lukashenko for “agreeing to come”, Mr. Lukashenko replied: “As if I couldn’t agree.”

Although the diplomatic relationship between Belarus and China is certain to develop in the coming weeks and months, continuing to shape the armed involvement of both countries in Russia’s war, Ukraine has deployed troops in the region. Saturday. The day begins and ends in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, with sirens of air strikes.

Ukraine’s military on Saturday reported that Russia had carried out 27 air strikes and 75 missile attacks on cities and villages in eastern and southern Ukraine in the previous 24 hours, but said that all territorial attacks were repulsed.

While Ukraine still prepares for another large-scale missile bombardment, Western and Ukrainian officials have said that Russia is running out of precision missiles. Britain’s military intelligence agency said on Saturday that the country is also likely to face a shortage of Iranian-made attack drones it has used in an attempt to penetrate the system. Ukraine’s air defense.

After a series of Western sanctions last year, China has increased its supply of more advanced technology to Russia, such as microchips, with a significant increase in exports to this country.

Additional reporting by Thomas Gibbons-Neff.

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