Minsk-Beijing: What Kind of Strategic Partnership?

Summary:

Sino-Belarusian relations are characterized by a gap between the quality and depth of the countries’ political partnership on the one hand, and the more limited economic reality of bilateral cooperation on the other.

Since they signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement in 2013, military-industrial cooperation has intensified, thereby substantiating Belarusian hopes for closer ties with China, which are meant to counterbalance Minsk’s complex relations with Moscow and Brussels. In the eyes of its Chinese partners, however, Belarus seems to enjoy only limited appeal compared with other central and eastern European (CEE) countries, which are more advanced on the road to economic transformation and better integrated into the global system.

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