Belarusian-Chinese Military-Technical Cooperation Reaches a New Level

On 17 December 2021, the 17th meeting of the Belarusian-Chinese Coordination Committee for Cooperation in the Field of Arms and Military Equipment (hereinafter referred to as the Committee) was held via videoconference.

The Belarusian part of the Committee was headed by the Minister of the State Authority for Military Industry (SAMI) Dmitry Pantus, the Chinese - by the Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for the Development of Weapons and Military Equipment of the Central Military Council of the People’s Republic of China Major General He Yubin.

Opening the meeting, Major General He Yubin noted that despite the global pandemic, military-technical cooperation between China and Belarus has positive dynamics, good potential and prospects for further development in a number of areas of mutual interest.

SAMI Minister stressed the strategic importance of developing comprehensive bilateral relations and informed his Chinese colleagues that in early December 2021, President of the Republic of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko approved Directive No. 9 “On the development of bilateral relations between the Republic of Belarus and the People’s Republic of China”. Dmitry Pantus noted that one of the areas of cooperation reflected in the document is interaction in the military-technical sphere.

The parties highly assessed the achieved success in bilateral military-technical cooperation and stressed that it is an important indicator of the strategic partnership between Belarus and China, which has a strong political foundation, develops on the principles of equality and mutually beneficial trust, meets the fundamental interests of the two countries. It was also noted that the working bodies of the two states carried out high-quality work on drafting and agreeing on a protocol, which provides an analysis of the implementation of bilateral projects, made proposals to update the list of major events and projects of military-technical cooperation.

The results of the work carried out and the plan for further cooperation were reflected in the protocol, which was signed by Dmitry Pantus on behalf of the Belarusian side, and Major General He Yubin on behalf of the Chinese.