Hong KongCNN —
Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko – a close ally of Vladimir Putin – on Wednesday, in a state visit that comes as the West warns China against providing lethal aid for Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Xi greeted Lukashenko in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Wednesday before the two began officials talks, according to Belarusian state media outlet Belta. Neither side has yet released details of the talks.
It is their first face-to-face meeting since the two leaders in September agreed to upgrade their countries’ ties to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan, which Putin also attended.
The visit from the Belarusian leader – who allowed Russian troops to use Belarus to stage their initial incursion into Ukraine last year – comes as tensions between the US and China have intensified in recent weeks, including over concerns from Washington that Beijing is considering sending lethal aid to the Kremlin’s struggling war effort. Beijing has denied those claims.
The meeting came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday made some of the most direct comments to date about how the US would respond to any lethal support China supplied to Russia.
Blinken warned Washington would target Chinese firms or citizens involved in any effort to send lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine, while speaking during a visit to Kazakhstan.
Beijing – which claims to be a neutral party in the conflict – has pushed back on the US implication it is considering sending lethal aid. Its Foreign Ministry on Monday said China was “actively promoting peace talks and the political settlement of the crisis,” while the US was “pouring lethal weapons into the battlefield in Ukraine.”
Beijing last week released a 12-point position on the “political solution” to the crisis in a document calling for peace talks to end the year-long war. Its release, however, was criticized by Western leaders, who accused China of already having taken Russia’s side.