China’s Defense Minister Touts ‘Fraternal Relations’ With Belarus

China's Defense Minister Li Shangfu addresses a speech during the Moscow Conference on International Security in Kubinka, in the outskirts of Moscow, on Aug. 15, 2023. Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images

China’s defense minister kicked off a three-day visit to Belarus this week amid mounting economic problems at home and tensions with the United States.

Defense Minister Li Shangfu met with Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin after arriving in Minsk on Aug. 16.

The conversation came a day after Gen. Li delivered speeches at a security forum and met with senior Russian military officials near Moscow. The top Chinese defense official is on a six-day trip that analysts suspect is aimed at taking attention away from its real troubles at home.

Gen. Li told his Belarusian counterpart that the relationship between Beijing and Minsk has been “continuously strengthening,” “steadily developing,” and “moving forward” in recent years, according to reports by Bleta, Belarus’s state-owned news agency.

Now, “we have truly fraternal relations,” said Gen. Li

He then said the bilateral trade increased by over 30 percent last year, noting China has become Belarus’s second-largest trade partner, Bleta reported.

Neither China’s defense ministry nor state media Xinhua mentioned those remarks. Beijing’s readout of the meeting briefly stated that the two defense ministers “exchanged views on the military relations between the two countries and the international security situation.”

The deepened defense partnership between Beijing and Minsk has sparked concerns that the Chinese regime may channel weapons to Russia through Kremlin-aligned Belarus to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, a speculation dismissed by the White House.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have repeatedly confirmed the “no limit“ partnership they first declared three weeks before the Ukraine war.

The communist regime in Beijing has refused to join in international sanctions on Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine and has consistently taken the position that international financial actions against Russia are invalid, thus providing Russia with a vital economic lifeline in Chinese markets.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in June that he has received assurance from the Chinese leadership that “it is not and will not provide lethal assistance to Russia for use in Ukraine.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping make a toast during a reception following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023. Pavel Byrkin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

Minsk has historically enjoyed close ties with Moscow. A Kremlin spokesman has previously described Belarus as Russia’s “No. 1 ally.”

Since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, military cooperation between Russia and Belarus has gone into overdrive. Last fall, Russia sent troops and military hardware to Belarus under the aegis of the Union State treaty. Moscow upped the ante earlier this year, unveiling plans to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. In June, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said a number of Russian nuclear weapons had already arrived.

Meanwhile, the cooperation between Belarus and China has intensified. Mr. Lukashenko visited Beijing in March and was welcomed by Mr. Xi, China’s paramount leader.

Gen. Li’s trip also marked the first time a Chinese defense minister visited Belarus since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Li’s Meeting With Lukashenko

On Thursday, Gen. Li sat down with Mr. Lukashenko, a close ally of Mr. Putin.

Mr. Lukashenko told the Chinese defense minister that Belarus shares the same version of global order with China, whose ruling Communist Party, geopolitical analysts say, is seeking to create a new international totalitarian order led by itself.

“China and Belarus share the same main ideas of the current and future prospective world order,” Mr. Lukashenko said, according to Bleta. “We, together, have been demonstrating this for the past three decades.”

Gen. Li responded by praising the deepening bilateral ties, which he described as an “all-weather and comprehensive strategic partnership,” according to a summary of the meeting released by Xinhua.

Gen. Li also called for closer cooperation between Beijing and Minsk at the military level.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko as they attend the welcome ceremony at Yanqi Lake during the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on May 15, 2017. Roman Pilpey-Pool/Getty Images

The Chinese official’s trip will last until Saturday, and he is expected to visit several facilities of the Belarusian military, according to Chinese media.

China’s Real Problem

In Russia, China’s defense chief took several veiled shots at the United States and reiterated Beijing’s stance on Taiwan. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, meanwhile, said bilateral ties with Beijing have “surpassed the level of strategic ties in all respects, becoming more than just allied.”

But outside analysts say what drives them to deliver such messages appears to be the desire to shift attention from their real troubles at home.

“The show by the two defense chiefs was mainly for their domestic audience,” Su Tzu-yun, a senior analyst at Taiwan’s government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times on Wednesday.

Mr. Su said Russia is facing domestic troubles, and as the war in Ukraine drags on, the ruble has now hit a near 17-month low. He added that what complicates the situation is that the partnership between Beijing and Moscow is not as stable as it appears on the surface.

China, meanwhile, has “mounting problems at home, like what President Biden described, ‘a ticking time bomb,’” said Mr. Su.

He noted that U.S. imports from China have been falling, with the share of U.S. imports dropping to 13 percent in June, compared with a peak level of 21 percent in 2017.

Mexico replaced China to become the U.S. top trade partner, with its share of U.S. imports rising over 15 percent in June.

“That means Beijing’s position as the ‘world’s factory’ has been gradually replaced,” said Mr. Su.

But the timing couldn’t be worse. Mr. Su pointed to soaring unemployment among young people. Official data showed the youth jobless rate hit a record high of 21.3 percent in June. On Tuesday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics stopped releasing the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds.

Moreover, problems are brewing in the already troubled property sector, Mr. Su added. Following the collapse of real estate Evergrande, another large developer—Country Garden—is now in danger of default.

“Beijing is eager to shift the blame away.”

Strained US-China Ties

The Chinese defense minister’s trip came as the Sino-U.S. relationship is strained over a range of issues, from the communist regime’s economic espionage to assertive military actions against Taiwan. The recent spat was sparked by a Chinese spy balloon that traversed over the United States for several days before being shot down.

Gen. Li has so far refused to sit down with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The bilateral exchange at the military level halted since the Chinese regime cut down bilateral cooperation in the military and seven other key areas last August in apparent reprisal for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Beijing rejected an invitation to meet with Mr. Austin at a security forum in Singapore in June and blamed the U.S. sanctions against its newly-appointed defense chief for the refusal.

Meanwhile, China is getting closer to Russia. Earlier this month, 11 Chinese and Russian vessels sailed near the coast of Alaska in a joint navy operation that American officials described as “unprecedented.“ The United States mobilized four destroyer ships in response, according to Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who said the intrusion ”is yet another reminder that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators in Beijing and Moscow.”

While the Biden administration is working to restart high-level dialogues with China—such as sending three cabinet officials to Beijing in a span of a month and inviting China’s new foreign minister to Washington—some China observers say there’s a small chance that bilateral ties will improve.

“To solve its economic problems at home, China needs the European and American markets,” said Mr. Su.

“But the deepening Sino-Russia partnership would nevertheless make the ties between China and the United States get worse,” he said. “So I think the CCP’s foreign policies are paradoxical.”

Adam Morrow, Jackson Richman, and Lou Ya contributed to this report.