China and Belarus could forge stronger military and technology ties as sanctions from the West prompt Minsk to look to Beijing for more support, diplomatic observers said. The European Union and the United States imposed sanctions on Belarus after a flight heading to Lithuania from Greece was forced to land in Minsk and Belarusian dissident journalist Roman Protasevich was arrested last month. The EU barred its airlines from using Belarusian airspace and Belarus planes were banned from EU airspace . The US also reimposed blocking sanctions on nine Belarusian state-owned companies. In addition, EU foreign ministers have been discussing sanctions targeting the Belarusian financial sector and the export of potash, which plays a key role in its economy. The US is also planning new sanctions . Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko responded by saying his country was ready to replace US and European technologies with those from Russia and Asia, especially from China. “Of course, we will have to walk away from Western goods, Western technology. We are ready to switch to, among others, Asian technologies which have been making great strides in the last few decades. According to preliminary calculations, China alone can provide a replacement for 90 per cent of European and US technologies,” Golovchenko told Belarus 1 broadcaster last Saturday. Experts said the Western sanctions might lead to stronger cooperation in technology with China. Zhang Xin, associate professor of international relations at East China Normal University, said the two sides were likely to deepen cooperation in areas such as military industry, 5G, chemical fertilisers and energy. “The two sides have been cooperating in [the] military industry closely over the past years. Notably, it is the kind of equal cooperation in which technology is exchanged for technology, rather than one party relying on the other. Such cooperation is likely to be further deepened given the new geopolitical situation.” Belarus earlier transferred a key missile technology – the construction technology of the MAZ-543 heavy high mobility truck to China, shoring up Chinese missiles. And China transferred the technology of the A200 Multiple Launch Rocket System to Belarus, which helped it develop the Polonez Multiple Launch Rocket System with a range of up to 300km (186 miles). Last month, Belarusian mobile network operator A1 worked with ZET of China to launch a stand-alone test 5G network across the country, a first among eastern European countries. “ZTE and A1 will soon launch a joint 5G laboratory in the industrial park Great Stone, where we plan to test network equipment and applications for vertical industries,” according to a report on Developing Telecoms website citing Wei Wei, general manager of ZTE LLC (Belarus). China and Belarus have close trade and investment links. Belarus received the highest direct investment flow from China among eastern European countries in 2019. The city of Beijing’s direct investment flow to Belarus was US$30 million, accounting for over 40 per cent of the city’s Belt and Road Initiative investment in 2019, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce. There was also a China-Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park launched in 2014, the largest overseas economic and trade cooperation zone in which China takes part in development and investment. The park is a special economic zone designated for hi-tech industrial and business activities. It includes zones for manufacturing, research, transport and logistics, as well as residential buildings. Over US$250 million has been invested in the park’s infrastructure over the past five years, according to its official website. China accounted for over 13 per cent of Belarus’ goods imports from non-Commonwealth of Independent States countries last year. Zhao Long, a senior research fellow from the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said Chinese enterprises that invested in Belarus valued the country’s local market more. “Given the economic sanctions from the West, Belarus will be more dependent on Russia economically, and expects both China and Russia to expand investment and trade in the country,” he said. But experts also said sanctions by the EU might concern certain Chinese companies when it came to economic cooperation with Belarus. “Chinese companies may be more cautious about entering Belarus now, as some of them expect to enter the western European market through Belarus. Now such expectation is unlikely to be met, Belarus and the EU are at odds,” Zhang Xin said. “If China strengthens its ties with Belarus in technological and economic fields, it’s necessary for China to keep a close communication with Russia on it, because China needs to respect Russia’s long-standing influence in Belarus.”