Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, after a week of violent threats against Belarus by Kiev figurehead Volodymyr Zelensky, has met with China’s President Xi Jinping today in Beijing, after just concluding a lengthy session in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Part of Zelensky’s threat was directed against Belarus’s two oil refineries, a key asset which also sells fuel to Russia.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, at the June 23 Ambassadorial Round Table in Moscow, took the occasion to respond to Zelensky’s saber-rattling by reminding one and all that Russia and Belarus have a full mutual-security treaty, under which an attack on one is treated as an attack on both. Then on June 26-27, Lukashenko visited Putin at the latter’s Valdai residence, where they had a 5-hour discussion. The Kremlin’s two-sentence release reported the discussion as being concerned with “regional security” as well as economic cooperation.
Lukashenko next showed up in China, where he received a red-carpet welcome and met today with China’s President Xi at Beijing’s Diaoyutai state guesthouse. Their talk lasted over three hours and, according to Belarus’ Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Snopkov, covered political, economic, and industrial cooperation, with Lukashenko proposing “closer ties across investment and economic sectors.” After the working meeting, the leaders continued their discussions over a traditional family dinner.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported today that Xi told Lukashenko that China supports Belarus in safeguarding its national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. Further, that China and Belarus “must maintain strategic communication, promote the continuous advancement of bilateral relations at a high level and better benefit the peoples of both countries.” Xi said that China is willing to continue providing assistance within its capacity for Belarus’ development and construction.
The length of the meetings and the sparsity of public details has been noticed. The New Voice of Ukraine, after recounting Zelensky’s threats to Lukashenko, mentioned as matters of concern the lengthy closed-door meeting with Putin and what they called the “unannounced” meeting with Xi.
However, it had already been announced by his press office that after Beijing, Lukashenko will next tour East and Southeast Asia. According to the BelTA news agency, the high interest in the development of cooperation with Asian states is among the foreign policy priorities of Belarus, forming the basis of a multi-vector policy. Hence, Belarus’ “Eurasian Charter on Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century” (ECDM) security proposal, conjoined with Russia and presented on June 22 to the OSCE meeting in Geneva, may well be at the heart of Lukashenko’s diplomatic endeavors. Last week, Belarus’ Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Sekreta described the ECDM: “The charter addresses not only security issues, but also economic cooperation, humanitarian exchange, and dialogue among civilizations, from Lisbon to Manila.”
At its core, the ECDM states that no state is to be in a military alliance that excludes other Eurasian countries and that no state is to permanently host foreign military infrastructure affecting neighbors’ core security interests. The further development of Global South concerns addressed in tandem with China and Russia may be a matter not to be openly discussed in much of the Western press, but it is an easy explanation as to Lukashenko’s actions and announced visits. If so, such EU-Ukraine games as threatening war with Belarus may well boomerang.
