Categories: ANALYTICS

Why Lukashenko was sent to China

Let’s discuss why Lukashenko was sent to China, as if by a Komsomol order. And how this visit might influence Ukraine. What he can seek there and why. Definitely, not a Chinese secret of how to develop collective farms.

By the way, Lukashenko is going to the Celestial Empire for the 13th time – more than any European leader. Even a self-appointed one.

Yes, he is close to the Chinese rulers with his mossy socialist ideals. And his authoritarian irremovability. And his rare political omnivorousness. That is, the Belarusian dictator and the Chinese CCP leaders are close in spirit.

Lukashenko has borrowed our Kuchma’s multi-vector approach, and flirts simultaneously with Russia and China (because it failed with the USA). It is China that keeps Lukashenko’s suspenders to keep him from falling into the abyss of war, where Putin is pulling him with all his might.

The matter is that China is implementing the Belt and Road strategic initiative in Belarus, where the Great Stone industrial park was created with Chinese money. And Lukashenko came up with an excuse saying that Xi Jinping is against Belarus joining the war in Ukraine, since Chinese investments may suffer because of this. And Putin has no argument against. By the way, this is an illustration of why China does not support Ukraine – because China protects only its own assets. And in Ukraine, it has problems, not assets.

Anyway, special relationship with China is no reason to shuttle to Beijing to buy consumer goods. Such readiness is shown by delivery couriers rather than by political leaders. So Lukashenko is now acting as such a courier, but instead of pizza or fried potatoes, he carries elements of a “peace plan” for Ukraine. A plan developed in Moscow to get a temporary respite from the unleashed war, and which needs to be coordinated and promoted by Beijing.

What appeared the other day is not a plan, but a kind of Chinese-style wish list, as there are points conflicting with one another. For example, the point on respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity contradicts the call to start peace talks. What negotiations and sovereignty if the occupier is on Ukrainian soil?

A plan, unlike a wish list, involves a sequence of steps. And if Lukashenko manages to agree on the main point with Beijing and Moscow, Comrade Xi will personally announce that peace plan. And if the plan he personally announced is not taken seriously, China will have to take steps to push through its plan, otherwise the image of a superpower will suffer.

The main point is to fix the demarcation line. Without this, no negotiation can be effective in principle.

Kyiv unequivocally and optimistically talks about the complete de-occupation of Ukraine, that is, a return to the situation of 2013, which is a crushing defeat for the under-empire and with which it will definitely not agree.

Moscow offers Jesuitically to “agree with the existing realities”, i.e., all territories occupied today remain under its control, which means the defeat of Ukraine, and we will definitely not agree with it either.

However, the superficial compromise – to revert to the situation before a full-scale invasion – is also unacceptable for the parties! Because public opinion of both countries is also a defeat! You see, usually a compromise is something that although with a stretch, can suit both parties. But it doesn’t suit both parties. That is why this war is existential.

That is, even the first point of the wish list does not fit into a plan for a peaceful settlement, for which the leader of China will not be ashamed. Therefore, with a probability of 80%, I am sure that Lukashenko will not achieve anything. And everything will be limited to the rhetorical Chinese wishes that have already been voiced. Which are like Chinese last warnings.

But if suddenly, for unknown reason, China wants to get involved in what is happening in Ukraine on the side of Russia, then the only effective option for promoting the pro-Kremlin “peace plan” can be Chinese arms deliveries to the under-empire. This is what the fuhrer with a suitcase is hoping for and expecting from China. Apparently, it is his last hope.

China will not directly supply weapons to the under-empire, otherwise it will immediately run into a really tough reaction from the USA and Europe. These markets are immeasurably more important for China than Russia. If it was ready for this, it would have done it a long time ago. The secret supply of weapons to Belarus, so that it would secretly transfer them to Russia, is not an option either, since this is an even more obvious scheme than the notorious “they are not there”.

The only option is legal deliveries of Chinese weapons to Belarus “to protect” Chinese assets there. But for this, Belarus will have to openly enter the war against Ukraine, which poses a mortal threat, first of all, to Lukashenko’s regime.

So Lukashenko is no more a successful political courier than he is a hockey player.

We have to do our job and not to relax. Because only victories on the fronts will ensure a real ceasefire on acceptable terms. And to achieve a lasting peace, which is possible only after the collapse of the under-empire, we still have to fight and fight.

Oleksandr Kochetkov

Ukraine Front Lines