Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Beijing on Monday. China and Belarus should maintain strategic communication, and promote the continuous progress of bilateral relations that are already running at a high level to better benefit the people of the two countries, Xi stressed, according to Xinhua News Agency.
China supports Belarus in safeguarding its national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, and in pursuing a development path that suits its own national conditions, Xi said, expressing China’s willingness to continue to offer assistance within its capacity for the development of Belarus, according to Xinhua.
Xi said China and Belarus are true friends who trust and support each other, good partners for common development and prosperity, and all-weather comprehensive strategic partners.
Having withstood the test of a changing international landscape, the bilateral relationship has made leapfrog development in recent years and has now entered the best period in history, he said.
Best period in history
The two sides have enjoyed solid political mutual trust, achieved fruitful results in high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, made tangible progress in key cooperation projects, and conducted productive multilateral coordination, Xi said.
Hailing the comprehensive and in-depth practical cooperation between Belarus and China, which provides important support for Belarus’ economic and social development, Lukashenko said the Belarusian side attaches great importance to its relations with China and looks forward to strengthening strategic communication, expanding cooperation areas, and promoting greater development of bilateral ties.
The visit marks Lukashenko’s 17th visit to China, Russia’s Sputnik reported on Monday, citing Pul Pervogo Telegram channel. Chinese experts said Lukashenko’s frequent visits demonstrate the high level of strategic mutual trust between China and Belarus, the closeness of bilateral ties and the breadth of their cooperation. They noted that the two countries enjoy broad prospects in Belt and Road cooperation and in jointly safeguarding regional peace and stability.
Since China and Belarus established an all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership in 2022, the two countries have carried out cooperation across multiple areas, including trade and economic cooperation as well as a number of Belt and Road construction projects such as the Great Stone industrial park and China-Europe Railway Express services, Cui Heng, a scholar at the Shanghai-based China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation, told the Global Times on Monday.
Projects such as the Great Stone industrial park have already attracted many enterprises and brought benefits to China-Belarus cooperation, Cui said. At the same time, China-Europe freight train services still have room for further expansion, while the two countries have also been promoting cooperation in industrial sectors such as machinery manufacturing, including whole-chain collaboration covering research and development, production and sales, he said.
The Great Stone industrial park was established under an intergovernmental agreement signed in 2011. According to the park’s official website, it serves as a manufacturing hub providing tariff-free entry to the Eurasian market within close proximity of the European Union. The park is close to Belarus’ capital Minsk and lies directly on the Northern Corridor of the New Silk Road trade route, forming a key part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Beyond the industrial park, the steady expansion of China-Europe Railway Express services supports the growing China-Belarus trade.
On June 22, a freight train carrying 110 TEUs of daily necessities, home appliances and auto parts departed from Jinhua, East China’s Zhejiang Province, for Minsk, marking another new China-Belarus trade route. Before that, freight train services from Wuhan and Beijing’s Liulihe to Belarus had been operating for years.
Trade cooperation is also gaining momentum. On June 7, a special event titled “Big market for all: Export to China” was held in Minsk. The event was jointly organized by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Belarusian Foreign Ministry and attended by more than 500 political and business representatives from both countries. Enterprises from both sides held on-site business meetings and reached agreements on multiple cooperative projects, according to Xinhua.
Belarus hopes to learn from China’s development and further expand its exports into the Chinese market, Zhang Hong, a research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday, noting that Lukashenko’s visit will play a positive role in this process.
Stabilizing force
The facts have proven that deepening the all-weather and all-round cooperation between China and Belarus is in line with the trend of the times and serves the fundamental interests of the two peoples, Xi said, according to Xinhua.
The two countries should mobilize resources from various sectors to advance Belt and Road cooperation, and enhance coordination and cooperation within multilateral frameworks to serve as a stabilizing force in a turbulent world, Xi said, adding that China is ready to work with Belarus to build a community with a shared future for humanity and implement the four major global initiatives proposed by China.
President Xi has put forward four major global initiatives to promote the political settlement of hot-spot issues, making significant contributions to world peace, stability and prosperity, said Lukashenko, adding that Belarus is willing to maintain close coordination with China on international and regional affairs and jointly promote global and regional peace, development and stability.
China-Belarus cooperation is not only bilateral, but also oriented toward regional security, Zhang said. With conflicts – Russia-Ukraine, the Middle East and in other parts of the world – still unfolding, the two sides can play a greater role in promoting regional peace and stability, he noted.
In terms of regional governance and stability, China can offer Belarus a reference point and help explore Chinese solutions, Zhang said. Unlike Western countries, which often resort to sanctions and suppression on security issues, China promotes peace talks, does not target any single country or region, and acts as a builder and defender of the international order – an approach that has gained increasing recognition from more countries, including Belarus, he said.
On Monday, responding to a foreign media question about Lukashenko’s visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that China stands ready to work with Belarus in building a community with a shared future for humanity, act on the four major global initiatives, step up coordination and collaboration under multilateral mechanisms and be a source of stability in this volatile world.
