Xi congratulates Lukashenko on reelection

President Xi Jinping on Monday sent a congratulatory message to Alexander Lukashenko on his reelection as Belarusian president.

In the message, Xi extended warm congratulations and best wishes to Lukashenko on behalf of the Chinese government and people as well as in Xi's own name.

Noting that he highly values the development of China-Belarus ties, Xi said he stands ready to work with Lukashenko to jointly push forward a comprehensive strategic partnership between the nations and expand mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields, so as to create new benefits for the two countries and peoples.

The presidential election was held on Sunday, and Lukashenko won a landslide victory.

According to the preliminary results released by the head of the Belarusian Election Commission on Monday, Lukashenko gained 80.23 percent of the vote for a sixth term.

A former collective farm manager in the then Soviet Union, Lukashenko has ruled the country since 1994. But this year, he faced his biggest electoral challenge in defeating the popular opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

The 37-year-old English-language teacher and translator emerged from obscurity weeks ago, and quickly gained support on social networks after deciding to enter the race, becoming the main rival to Lukashenko.

Tikhanovskaya came second with only 9.9 percent of the vote, data showed. Three other candidates received less than 2 percent support.

After voting on Sunday, Lukashenko said he did not see Tikhanovskaya as a threat, and denied accusations that he had imposed repressive measures on the opposition.

The reelection of Lukashenko will help the continuous development of Belarus' policies toward China, experts said.

Anatoli Tozik, director of the Republican Confucius Institute of Sinology at Belarusian State University, said Belarus has been modernizing its economy, and its interest in China's experience is growing.

While studying China's experience is helpful, applying its methods will require work in Belarus, said Tozik, suggesting that the Belarusian government would continue to enhance cooperation with its Chinese counterpart.

Tozik also pointed to the benefits of direct communication lines between the two presidents, saying that their relationship injects energy into bilateral cooperation in all fields.

The two presidents held a telephone conversation on June 11, when they talked about turning challenges into opportunities as the countries deepened their cooperation in the joint pursuit of the Belt and Road Initiative.

During the phone call, Xi pointed out that since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, China and Belarus have been sticking together through thick and thin and looking out for each other, demonstrating a deep, iron-clad friendship between the two sides and the high-level nature of China-Belarus relations.

Lukashenko said Belarus stands ready to work with China to make full use of China-Europe freight trains to expand bilateral trade, jointly build the Belt and Road, and promote practical cooperation in a wide range of fields.

Xinhua contributed to this story.