China and Belarus announced they were holding joint military training exercises just miles from the border of Poland – a NATO and European Union member.

Belarus’ Ministry of Defense said troops from China’s People’s Liberation Army arrived in Belarus over the weekend. It published a series of photographs showing Chinese troops offloading equipment from a military cargo aircraft and said the drills will last for 11 days, from Monday to July 19.

NATO and the EU have long accused Belarus of weaponizing the border by pushing asylum-seekers from third countries to its borders and the joint exercises will no doubt be seen by some as a further provocation – especially as they come on the eve of NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington, D.C., and on the day that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting Poland.

  • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Probably won’t lead to anything, China isn’t led by someone stupid enough to start a war with the US by bringing the entirety of NATO into it at once via article 5, especially not with their eyes on the prize of Taiwan still (and also probably a good chunk of Russia)

  • febra@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    As an EU citizen what can I say. We do the same thing on China’s borders with our allies there. I don’t see an issue with China giving us a taste of our own medicine.

  • tiredofsametab@kbin.run
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    4 months ago

    When I sometimes talk about things in my past that make me nostalgic, cold war shenanigans never makes that list.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    4 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    China and Belarus announced they were holding joint military training exercises just miles from the border of Poland – a NATO and European Union member.

    It published a series of photographs showing Chinese troops offloading equipment from a military cargo aircraft and said the drills will last for 11 days, from Monday to July 19.

    NATO and the EU have long accused Belarus of weaponizing the border by pushing asylum-seekers from third countries to its borders and the joint exercises will no doubt be seen by some as a further provocation – especially as they come on the eve of NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington, D.C., and on the day that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting Poland.

    Moscow partly used Belarus as a launching pad for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 after amassing troops on the Ukrainian border during what it said were joint military exercises.

    The Chinese troops arrived in Belarus just days after that country joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Thursday.

    Founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to combat terrorism and promote border security, the SCO has grown in recent years as Beijing and Moscow drive a transformation of the bloc from a regional security club with a focus on Central Asia to a geopolitical counterweight to Western institutions led by the United States and its allies.


    The original article contains 345 words, the summary contains 227 words. Saved 34%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • Atin@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Mutually assured destruction had tended to stop certain countries from finding out.