Sanctions-hit Belarus lauded by Xi as China's true friend

BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese President Xi Jinping praised Belarus as a true friend of China as he met Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of the sanctions-hit European nation, on Wednesday and urged the Russian allu to join Beijing in opposing "hegemony and bullying".

Lukashenko's visit to Beijing was his first since he was declared a winner of January's presidential election that extended his 31-year rule of the former Soviet republic. Western governments had rejected his victory as a sham.

The Belarusian economy has been bruised by Western sanctions and trade tariffs due to its backing of Russia's war in Ukraine. Severed from Western markets, Minsk, which had allowed Russian forces to use its territory to stage its invasion of Ukraine, has increasingly pivoted to the East.

Xi, greeting Lukashenko in Zhongnanhai, the seat of power in Beijing, congratulated him on his re-election, Xinhua reported, adding that China and Belarus were "true friends and good partners."

"The traditional friendship between the two countries has endured for a long time, political mutual trust is unbreakable," Xi said.

Both countries should also oppose "hegemony and bullying, and defend international fairness and justice," Xi told Lukashenko.

"You have very accurately pointed out the main feature of our time - the unprecedented pressure from the West on us, primarily on the People's Republic of China," Belarus' state news agency BelTA cited Lukashenko as saying.

"And today, the eyes of many countries, including Belarus, are turned toward you - to Beijing," Lukashenko said.

Last month, Xi visited Vladimir Putin in Russia and vowed to stay as "friends of steel" in a new world order that should no longer by dominated by the United States.

Russia and China have come under renewed pressure from Washington since Donald Trump returned to the White House, with Moscow urged to quickly end the war in Ukraine and Beijing subject to new trade tariffs.

Lukashenko, who has visited China 15 times over the years, has counted on Beijing as a provider of credit and investment, even as Belarus is considered to lie within Moscow's traditional sphere of influence.

Minsk is also turning to Beijing for help transform and upgrade its industries, officially becoming a BRICS partner-nation and member-state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) last year.

However, economic imbalances remain even as China pledges to deepen bilateral cooperation.

China's trade surplus with Belarus widened by 47.6% to $4.77 billion in 2024 from a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data, with China's export of cars, digital television receivers and washing machines far exceeding its purchases of Belarusian products including farm fertilisers.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo in Beijing and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Raju Gopalakrishnan)