- Tessa Wong and George Wright
- BBC reporter
image source,AFP via Getty Images
The two leaders, China and Belarus, say they are “extremely interested” in a peaceful solution to the Ukraine issue.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, jointly issued the statement following talks in Beijing.
Lukashenko says Belarus “fully supports” Beijing’s plans to stop the war in Ukraine.
China last week announced a plan for peace talks, calling for respect for national sovereignty.
Lukashenko’s visit to Beijing comes days following Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The meeting between Lukashenko and Xi also coincided with a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Central Asian countries, where Blinken is also discussing the situation in Ukraine.
“Extremely interested in peace proposals”
China and Belarus on Wednesday (March 1) expressed “deep concern” over the Ukrainian-Russian conflict and said they were “extremely interested in establishing peace in Ukraine as soon as possible,” Belarusian state news agency BelTa reported.
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But Lukashenko is assisting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and observers see his trip to Beijing as another sign of China’s inclination to Russia and its allies.
In addition, the Belarusian leader praised China’s peace plan.
The “twelve-point document” published by Beijing urges respect for “the sovereignty of all countries”. But it did not explicitly say that Moscow must withdraw its troops from Ukraine. The document also denounced the use of “unilateral sanctions”, which was also analyzed as an implicit criticism of Ukraine’s Western allies.
Lukashenko said he fully supports the initiative on global security. He also told Xi that political decisions “should first be aimed at preventing a slide into a global confrontation with no winners”.
However, China’s peace plan is widely distrusted in the West.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he agreed with parts of the plan and said it was a signal that China was willing to participate in the summit. So far, Beijing has not publicly responded to Zelensky’s call for a summit.
According to official information released by China regarding the meeting between Xi Jinping and Lukashenko, Xi Jinping called for the abandonment of “all Cold War mentality”; he also said that countries “should stop politicizing the global economy” and “do things that will help ceasefire and stop wars” and things to be resolved peacefully.”
Lukashenko’s three-day visit comes following Beijing raised the status of its relations with Belarus in September last year, months following the war in Ukraine began.
The Chinese foreign ministry statement described the relationship between the two countries as an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership”, a rare diplomatic term in Beijing that is currently only used for another country – Pakistan.
According to the analysis of the BBC International Media Observation Department (BBC Monitoring), this means that Belarus now ranks very high among China’s international allies in international relations, second only to Russia.
important ally of russia
In fact, Belarus has been an important ally of Russia from the beginning of the conflict, when Belarus also allowed Moscow to use Belarus’s border with Ukraine as a platform to attack Kiev, but ultimately failed.
At the same time, China attempted to appear neutral by stating its support for the respective national sovereign interests and security of Ukraine and Russia.
Xi Jinping calls for “abandoning all Cold War mentality”.
But Beijing also refuses to condemn Moscow and supports Russia indirectly. According to multiple analyses, Chinese state media is actively promoting the idea that Moscow is waging the war.
In addition, the Chinese government strongly denies the claims made by the United States last week that Beijing is “considering” supplying arms and ammunition to Russia.
When asked regarding the allegations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “It is never acceptable for the US to dictate or even coerce and pressure China-Russia relations.”
The U.S. also accuses some Chinese companies of supplying Russia with dual-use technology — items that can be used for both civilian and military purposes, such as drones and semiconductor chips.
Wednesday’s trip to China comes as the United States makes its own diplomatic push, with Blinken visiting Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In a speech in Uzbekistan, he noted that the war “has caused deep concern throughout the region” and underscored the US commitment to sovereignty.
“After all, if a great power is willing to use force to erase the borders of its sovereign neighbors, what’s to stop it from doing the same to other countries? The countries of Central Asia understand this,” Blinken said.
The five Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) are all former Soviet republics that trade with Russia and China. But they remained largely neutral during the war, adhering to Western sanctions and expressing unease over Russian incursions into Ukraine, also a former Soviet republic.
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