Belarus leader to visit China amid flurry of Ukraine diplomacy

President Alexander Lukashenko has been a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin during the war.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has paid several state visits to China. Picture: AFP

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will visit China this week, as Beijing has sought to play a more active role in diplomacy around the war while supporting its close partner Russia.

Mr Lukashenko is scheduled to pay a state visit to China from Tuesday to Friday, Chinese state media reported on Saturday.

The trip comes amid a flurry of diplomacy around the anniversary of the Ukraine war. China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, visited Russia last week, around the same time as US President Joe Biden made a surprise trip to Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to visit Moscow. The partnership between the two countries has deepened since Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, troubling the US and its Western allies. The countries declared that their friendship has “no limits” when the Russian and Chinese leaders met just before the invasion on the sidelines of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

China has extended an economic lifeline to Russia as it grapples with Western sanctions. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said China was considering giving Russia arms to aid its war effort — an assertion Beijing has rejected.

Belarus has also been the target of sanctions, as Mr Lukashenko has been a key Russian ally throughout the war, allowing Moscow’s troops to use the country to stage the invasion. He said recently that he would again let Russian troops use Belarus for further attacks, though he said he would only send his own troops if Belarusian forces were attacked.

Mr Lukashenko has also sought to portray himself as a potential peacemaker. The country hosted ceasefire talks earlier in the war, and Mr Lukashenko has offered to host talks between the Russian and US presidents.

On Friday, China made a fresh call for a ceasefire and peace talks to end the war, seeking to cast itself as a neutral mediator in the conflict. Its efforts have been met with scepticism in some Western capitals because of Beijing’s close partnership with Moscow.

In a 12-point document issued Friday morning in Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry outlined what it called “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis,” using its preferred label for the war.

The paper summarised a range of public positions that Mr Xi and other Chinese officials have long taken on the war in Ukraine. Though it was short on details, it appeared to offer a veiled warning to Moscow against escalating the conflict with nuclear weapons.

Mr Lukashenko, who has been Belarus’s top leader since 1994, has paid several state visits to China.

The Wall Street Journal