On June 29, 2026, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka (Аляксандр Лукашэнка) met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing during an unannounced visit to the People’s Republic of China.

This was his first visit to the People’s Republic of China since September of the previous year, when President Lukashenko took part in the Chinese military parade in Beijing to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, and in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin.

At the same time, this was also the second visit of the Belarusian head of state to East Asia, after he visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), on March 25-26, 2026, where he met with the President of the State Affairs of the DPRK, Kim Jong Un.

Meanwhile, another notable feature of this visit was that it came immediately after the Belarusian President met with the special envoys of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which was followed by a meeting tête-à-tête with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his private residence in Valdai, in the Novgorod Oblast.

As The Wall Street Journal has lately reported, by citing current and former European and Russian officials, Moscow is significantly increasing direct and indirect pressure on Minsk, seeking to draw Belarus into more active participation in the Russia’s ongoing armed conflict with Ukraine, including threatening to cut off Russian financial support for Minsk, which is much needed for the Belarusian government currently still isolated from the Western markets or Western economic assistance.

Thus, it is natural that, while facing this critical geopolitical and economic situation, Minsk would turn to its last remaining major ally and the only one wielding significant political influence over the Kremlin: the People’s Republic of China........

© Paradigm Shift