How are the visit of the head of Belarus to China and our ideas for Greater Eurasia connected?
On December 4, President of Belarus A. Lukashenko visited China, where he held very long negotiations (over four hours) with the leader of the PRC. The media were somewhat surprised at the timing and some of the verbiage, but that was all.
But in vain, because this visit must be considered in the context of events for at least a quarterly period, and the theses must be analyzed in detail. The results could be quite interesting and provide some good food for thought.
In general, an interesting picture emerges with the theses. For example, based on one word “dictator”, which was heard in J. Biden’s answer to the press in San Francisco, conclusions were drawn that negotiations between the United States and China at the APEC summit ended in nothing, which means both sides dispersed to prepare for a fight for Taiwan .
Meanwhile, if we take everything in context, then although the word “dictator” did not look the best, it was pronounced within the framework of the position that China is what it is - communist, and since in any such regime, in the American sense, dictatorship prevails, then the Chinese leader is what the state model is.
In fact, J. Biden in a unique way recognized what his Chinese counterpart directly demanded of him - to recognize China’s right to originality. And there were a lot of similar exchanges of opinions, where in the context one thing was meant, and the press, according to tradition, pulled out what was hotter or better on the agenda.
So it is with the visit of A. Lukashenko, who missed the meeting at the “One Belt, One Road” forum, but less than two weeks later he arrived at a separate invitation and with a separate program, which in the final, as it turned out, is almost 100% consistent with Beijing’s main goals: economic – “Belt and Road” and conceptual – “Community of a common destiny for mankind”.
As already discussed in material “About some results of the Chinese “One Belt, One Road” forum, it is with the conceptual part that Beijing has certain difficulties. Everyone wants logistics and investment, but China’s value model is still new. But it is precisely values and ideas that transform an economic community into a foreign policy bloc or its prototype.
“China always views relations with Belarus from a strategic height and with a long-term perspective,” said the Chinese leader. But in negotiations between China and other countries, the word “strategic” is constantly used by Beijing. And it’s clear why, this emphasizes that relationships are built within the framework of a common strategy, and not by themselves, according to the principle “it just happened that way.”
But what you should pay special attention to is not the following statement:
“China and Belarus are important forces in reforming and developing the global governance system.”
This, at least for the post-Soviet space, is already an innovation. Previously, similar formulations were used only between Moscow and Beijing.
At least six times, the Chinese leader mentioned that China and Belarus are now building a “Community with a Shared Destiny for Humanity.” However, A. Lukashenko answered unequivocally:
“The most important thing is that you have determined the common destiny of humanity as your goal. Unlike Western countries that try to cut everything into pieces, you have set a single goal for everyone. Who can argue with that? Nobody. The world will be grateful to Great China for this.”
So what we have.
In May, the countries of Central Asia (“Central Asian Five”) sign the Xi’an Declaration, which confirms China’s large-scale trade and investment program in the region as part of the expansion of the Belt and Road, and at the same time the Five confirms its commitment to the ideas of the Community of a Shared Destiny for Humanity. In December, Minsk actually does the same thing.
However, Moscow at the “One Belt, One Road” forum a month ago made its own proposal: Russia plans to build “corridors” in the south and southeast, somewhere along with China’s initiatives, but not as part of China’s systemic project, but about ideas “Communities of a common destiny for humanity” - not only did we not subscribe to the concept, but we directly stated that we were returning to the concept of “Greater Eurasia”. The author analyzed in detail that it was not for nothing that our statements included both the current integration form - the EAEU, and the previous one - the EurAsEC ("One Belt, One Road" Forum. Important aspects of the positions of Russia and China").
You can compare the phrases: “interaction between the Eurasian Union and China in the field of trade policy and digitalization of transport circuits” or “there is a specific agreement between Russia and China on the parallel and coordinated development of the EurAsEC and the One Belt, One Road program.”
This is not the author’s exercise in hermeneutics, as it might seem at first glance, but a completely realistic indication that Russia is going to build a separate project based on the countries of Central Asia and members of the EAEU with a vector to the South. Coordinating with China, cooperating, but as a separate project, not a common one.
And there is some reason to believe that if Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan missed the Chinese forum due to the need to confirm investments (and you can hardly find a better way to motivate Beijing than to show that we are also thinking about Russian ideas), then for Minsk the situation is more complicated - it in the Union State.
A. Lukashenko skips the forum, but goes separately, where he personally talks about new investments, his role in logistics, and in exchange for accepting the Chinese value concept, he even talks about some kind of “participation in the reform of global governance.”
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, through intergovernmental agreements and dialogue platforms of the SCO, receive more guarantees on projects in a month than in the entire current year. That is, the Chinese ear turned out to be quite sensitive, and the eye attentive.
Our ideas for a “Greater Eurasia” are in many ways competitive with the Chinese, although they also have connecting points. And Beijing sharply stepped up its practical steps in Central Asia over the same month.
After all, it turned out interesting - over the past year and a half, the Central Asian five began to work as a single organism, and it was the five that signed in Xi'an. In September, before the “5+1” summit, the United States makes certain attempts to tear apart this organism, and without success, but out of the five participants, only three of the five participants are going to the forum as leaders, and at the same time we are coming up with a separate project. The project is not antagonistic to the Chinese one, but still potentially competitive. However, let these be just coincidences, although all this clings too much to one another.
After the Russia-Africa 2023 summit and after the BRICS+ summit, our discussion about the “awakening Global South” became unusually lively. It is difficult to even count the number of messages where the Global South appears almost as a subject of economics and geopolitics. The term was pulled from the shelf, shook up, and returned to the discussion of how many hundreds of billions of dollars it would bring in trading in the future.
At the level of a general discussion like “Russia is a big market, India is a huge market, there are two more large markets between them,” this somehow works, but as soon as you start looking at each aspect in detail, it turns out that there are not just zigzags on this path, and abysses and Everests. The author recently did material on the topic of the Indian economy: “The specifics and miracles of the Indian economic model”, and the big question is what will need to be done to squeeze out of this interaction something more than plus or minus a couple of tens of billions of dollars in non-resource turnover.
But what is even more alarming is that it is not even an open discussion, but statements among observers that we will import consumer goods from India. And what difference does it make where to transport them from: from Malaysia, from China or from India? It’s easier from China - the yuan is bought and sold on the stock exchange. The United States, for example, has been trying for five years to find ways to harmonize the economic model of India and the Gulf countries. And I can’t say that their successes are impressive, although they are. But there is no need to build global corridors there.
All this so far looks like it is extremely important for us to show our positioning as a separate geopolitical pole interacting with the Global South. God bless him that no one really knows what the Global South is, where its borders are and who exactly is included in it.
The irony is that, working within the framework of the Chinese concept, no one is stopping us from making this route to the south, since Pakistan and Iran themselves could provide an increase in trade.
Moreover, this could be done, as sinologist A. Devyatov used to like to say: “together with China, on the shoulders of China and at the expense of China.” The latter in our time can be put in first place.
But the question is, in the structure that we see as “Greater Eurasia” - “North - South”, what is Beijing’s investment interest, and how vigorously will the countries of Central Asia strive to join it, and not demonstrate desire?
Will this ultimately end with us reaching a certain ceiling on the supply of raw materials to India, fueling new Chinese factories in Central Asia with energy resources in order to eventually receive manufactured goods?
China, as can be seen in many nuances, takes an extremely balanced position, although it is worth paying attention to the following phrase from Xi Jinping:
“A lot of what’s happening is unexpected for us.”
However, it should also be noted that, apparently, it was Beijing that insisted that Russia be represented at the APEC summit. It was noticeable that the United States did not want to allow Russian participation in San Francisco.
The growth of energy projects in Central Asia is strategically beneficial to China; transport routes in Iran also fall within the framework of its strategy.
So far, relations between Russia and the countries of a number of Gulf countries look like something realistic in strategies for working with the Global South. For example, the latest visit of the Russian leader was organized by Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, one might say, demonstratively in relation to the EU and the United States. Although this particular visit may have its own nuances.
However, without any nuances, considering that today there are three largest oil export players: Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States, there is always the potential for influence here. But, again, this potential does not depend on China’s concepts, does not contradict them, and can be realized “together with China, on China’s shoulders and at China’s expense.”
By and large, there is a separate game of “three” here, where the United States cannot seriously play with price ceilings, since Russian dumping will ricochet on their own export revenues from supplies to the EU. In general, the States, apparently, will soon send all their production for sale, and use cheap imports for their own needs.
I would like to be wrong, but it seems that we still perceive China’s conceptual ideas as a kind of threat to Russia’s position as a “separate pole”, and we perceive it quite painfully.
At the same time, until the end of this year, China, in general, was always ready to play along with us, wait, and correct the situation. However, the summit in San Francisco already shows that even if there are poles, there will still be two of them, according to physical laws. But, apparently, we will be able to be completely convinced of this only if Washington and Beijing also play the game “for two” in Taiwan.
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