Chinese language Defence Minister Li Shangfu arrived in Belarus on August 16 for a 3 day official go to, and was obtained was by his Belarusian counterpart Lieutenant Normal Viktor Khrenin at Minsk Nationwide Airport. The Chinese language minister had arrived from Russia after taking part within the eleventh Moscow Convention on Worldwide Safety held close to Moscow. Though the 2 defence ministers had met on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Defence Ministers’ Assembly in late April, this was the primary excessive degree go to associated to Sino-Belarusian defence cooperation up to now 5 years, with officers from each two nations anticipated to stipulate areas of cooperation for the close to future and trade views on their safety conditions. The go to comes simply days after neighbouring Poland introduced that it could considerably increase its army presence on Belarus’ border, after Belarusian authorities had for years raised considerations relating to the enlargement of NATO offensive capabilities close to their territory. Over the previous three years Belarus has considerably strengthened defence ties with Russia, and a number of Russian air defence and fighter items have been redeployed from close to China’s borders within the Russian Far East to bases on Belarusian territory.
China and Belarus established shut defence ties within the early Nineties, with Belarus being a number one provider of army gear to China on the time and at occasions competing with Russia and Ukraine for contracts. The 2 have additionally launched into joint army applications, most famously the Polonez rocket artillery system which noticed Chinese language applied sciences transferred to the Jap European state. Alongside Serbia, Belarus stays one in every of simply two European nations thought-about to be exterior NATO’s sphere of affect, and is taken into account prime have one of many extra succesful armed forces amongst Chinese language army companions. Belarus has confronted rising tensions with NATO on its Western border, and has lately invested closely in modernising its armed forces primarily with acquisitions of Russian property akin to S-400 air defence programs and Mi-35 helicopters. China stays a number one Belarusian buying and selling companion, with Chinese language commerce and applied sciences having been a major issue permitting Minsk to endure concerted Western financial warfare efforts from 2020 which escalated farther from early 2022.
