Hong Kong(CNN) Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko — a close ally of Vladimir Putin — on Wednesday, in a state visit that comes as the West warns China against providing deadly aid for Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Xi welcomed Lukashenko to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday before the two officials began talks, according to Belarusian state media outlet Belta.
This is their first face-to-face meeting since the two leaders last September agreed to upgrade their countries’ ties to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). summit in Uzbekistan, where Putin also attended.
Lukashenko (left) met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping (right) in Beijing, China on Wednesday, as tensions between the pair and Western leaders escalated amid conflicting stances on the Ukraine war.
The leader’s visit to Belarus — which allowed Russian troops to use Belarus to stage their initial invasion of Ukraine last year — comes as tensions between the US and China have intensified in recent years. week, including concerns from Washington that Beijing is considering sending. fatal aid to the Kremlin’s struggling war effort. Beijing denies the claims.
The meeting came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday made some of the most direct comments to date on how the US would respond to any lethal support China provides to Russia.
Blinken warned that Washington would target Chinese companies or citizens involved in any effort to send lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine, while speaking on a visit to Kazakhstan. He later said he had no plans to meet his Russian or Chinese counterparts at a G20 meeting for foreign ministers scheduled to take place in New Delhi in India on March 2.
Beijing – which claims to be a neutral party to the conflict – pushed back on the US implication that it was considering sending lethal aid. Its Foreign Ministry on Monday said that China is “actively promoting peace talks and the political settlement of the crisis,” while the US is “pouring deadly weapons into the battlefield of Ukraine.”
Beijing last week released a 12-point position on a “political solution” to the crisis in a document that called for peace talks to end the year-long war. Xi also confirmed China’s stance on the conflict with Lukashenko, according to a Chinese reading of the meeting.
“China’s role in the political solution of the Ukraine crisis has been released,” Xi said. “The core of China’s position is to promote peace and talks. We must stick to the direction of political settlement, abandon all Cold War mentality, respect the legitimate security concerns of all countries, and establish a balance, effective, and sustainable European security architecture. .”
Xi added that, “relevant countries should stop politicizing and creating the world economy and do things that will help stop the fire and war and resolve the crisis peacefully.”
According to the Chinese reading, Lukashenko said that the Belarusian side “fully agrees and supports China’s position and proposition on a political solution to the crisis in Ukraine, which is essential to solving the crisis.”
Its release, however, was criticized by Western leaders, who accused China of siding with Russia. Reacting to the meeting between Xi and Lukashenko, Blinken said that China “can’t have it both ways,” “positioning itself as a force for public peace” while it “continues to light the flames this fire started by Vladimir Putin.”
He added that there were “some positive elements” in China’s peace proposal but warned, “if China is really serious about this, the very first principle that puts sovereignty, it will cost everything last year working to support the restoration of Ukraine’s full, full sovereignty.”
Blinken accused China of doing the opposite of supporting peace in Ukraine “in terms of its efforts to advance Russian propaganda and misinformation about blocking and fighting for Russia.”
Lukashenko said he fully supports Beijing’s “new” security initiative days after it released a 12-point position on Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Lukashenko also met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday and called on the two countries to “strengthen” their relations, according to a readout from the Belarusian government.
“We do not have closed topics for cooperation. We cooperate in all ways. Most importantly, we have not set ourselves the task of being friends or working against third countries,” Lukashenko told Li per to read.
The tightening of relations between Minsk and Beijing coincides with a year of declining relations between Belarus and the European Union and as it seeks to diversify its economy dependent on Russia.
The former Soviet state has been targeted by sanctions from the US and its allies in response to Moscow’s aggression after Lukashenko allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine through the 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) border with Ukrainian- Belarus north of Kyiv.
The European Union also did not recognize the results of Lukashenko’s victory in the 2020 election — which sparked mass pro-democracy protests in the country and was followed by a brutal government crackdown.
There are fears throughout the conflict in Ukraine that Belarus will again be used as a launching pad for another Russian offensive, or that Lukashenko’s own troops will join the war. Before visiting Moscow earlier this month, Lukashenko admitted there was “no way” his country would send troops to Ukraine unless it was attacked.
China and Belarus have previously suggested that the US does not want the conflict to end.
In comments to reporters earlier this month before going to Moscow to meet Putin, Lukashenko insisted he wanted to see “peaceful negotiations” and accused the United States of preventing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from in negotiations.
“Only the US needs this killing, only they want it,” he said.
Beijing has made similar statements, with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi telling a security conference in Munich earlier this month that China is not “adding fuel to the fire,” and is “against reap the benefits from this crisis,” referring to regular Chinese propaganda. message that the US intends to prolong the war to advance its own geopolitical interests and increase the profits of its arms manufacturers.
CNN’s Martin Goillandeau and Sandi Sidhu contributed reporting.
