Political Scientist: Lukashenka Bothers Everyone, He Will Be Over Until The End Of The Year

He'll have to leave.

The head of the State Council of China Li Qiang on visit in Belarus. The final communiqué following his visit reads that “the two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation on China-Europe freight trains… to jointly ensure the safety of the China-Europe freight train transportation channels.”

Did the People's Republic of China manage to bend Lukashenka? Is it worth to expect any important events? Charter97.org talked about this with Belarusian political scientist Anatol Kotau:

— Let's not use the term "bend", because this leads to absolutely the opposite result in Lukashenka's case. But, in fact, you absolutely correctly identified the most important thing, in fact, the only meaningful point in this communiqué following the visit. It was about the safety of transit.

Everyone is well aware (including China) that the only threat to Chinese transit quite insane Lukashenka's regime. Accordingly, this can be regarded as such a fixation, already on paper, of the regime's obligations to change its behavior in relation to what poses a threat to Chinese transit, to cargo transportation by rail through the territory of Belarus. These factors, in general, are also known — this is illegal migration, and there should also be a reaction to Polish expectations regarding the normalization of the situation on the border and with political prisoners, in particular — with Andrzej Poczobut.

China forced the Lukashenka regime to subscribe to the need to de-escalate the situation, normalize it for the safe and uninterrupted transit of goods. I would consider the situation not from the point of view of the success of the Belarusian regime, but precisely from the point of view that they were forced to make written commitments to normalize the situation.

— Recently, Polish President Andrzej Duda said in an interview that the released Belarusian political prisoners are in fact the result of his trip to Beijing. Does this scheme work when Poland puts pressure on Lukashenka through China?

— This is a more comprehensive work, which combines elements of diplomacy and international pressure. As practice has shown, this is effective only if some pressure is felt from multiple sides, including the side from which Belarus did not expect much.

Belarus hoped that the previously signed document on all-weather and some other cooperation with China was a guarantee that Beijing would protect the Lukashenka regime in any of its manifestations. However, for China, its economic interests are definitely above any political curtsies.

Here, the level of China's interaction with Poland and the European Union is several orders of magnitude higher than with Belarus. When it comes to threatening China's interests, they defend their interests, which in this particular case coincide more with Europe than with the Lukashenka regime.

So people came out, I hope that this process will continue. I have no reason here to disagree with the assessment of why this happened, with the assessment made by the President of Poland.

— Not so long ago, in an interview for Radio Racyja, you shared a rather bold forecast that Lukashenka, as a politician, will not live to see the end of the year. What is your prediction based on?

— This forecast is based on several factors. Firstly, let's say that the regime itself really hinders all the players whose interests are in this region. It is clear that the regime has extremely limited opportunities for agreements with the West. For China, its unpredictable behavior poses, if not a threat, then certain risks. For Russia, this is also an ally, let's say, not very reliable, and a serious political campaign within Belarus is at stake.

The electoral campaign, which the regime calls "elections", is already underway. You can already prepare for the fact that you will have to look for some kind of transit option.

There is some frost at stake in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Here, Lukashenka's unpredictability prevents all players from achieving any result. His throwing around in a circle (from allied assistance to Russian aggression against Ukraine, to attempts to bargain for themselves in the West and somehow reconcile with Ukraine) they do not suit either side. If Lukashenka decided, everything would be clear, but this rushing is able to destroy the contour of the deal, which is likely to be made by the end of the year. So he has to leave.

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