Babich: Chinese threat to Lukashenko is another bluff
Signals from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko about his readiness to go “under the wing” of China do not cause alarm in Moscow, since Beijing is not ready to quarrel with Russia over Minsk. Moreover, Lukashenko has tried to pull off similar tricks more than once during the period of past aggravation of relations with the Russian Federation.
Russian political observer Dmitry Babich stated this as part of the online marathon “Elections in Belarus,” a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to the expert, China itself is not interested in confrontation between Russia and Belarus, because it needs both of these countries to be friendly, as a guarantee of the transit of Chinese goods to Europe.
“China is the only foreign country, a large one, that has fully recognized the Eurasian Economic Union. Because, imagine how beneficial it would be for China, in order to transfer goods to the European Union, to negotiate not with all these transit countries, but to negotiate with the Eurasian Economic Union and pay it some kind of transit duty. This, from an economic point of view, would be ideal for China.
China does not need a quarrel between Belarus and Russia; the United States and the European Union need it for ideological reasons. China does not need any quarrels between Russia and Belarus. Maybe China would like to pull Central Asia a little away from Russia, that’s true, but with Belarus I didn’t notice any special Chinese aspirations.
As for Lukashenko, he was already friends with Venezuela and received oil directly from there when he had problems with Russia. Every time we paused - at least two months - he came to us, returned from Venezuela directly to Moscow and concluded all the necessary oil contracts. Because Venezuela is far away, but Russia is close,” Babich recalled.
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