Poland has taken the decisive step of closing its border with Belarus, causing significant disruption to a key rail freight corridor between China and the EU. This closure has affected a substantial volume of annual freight traffic, estimated at around €25 billion, encompassing essential cargo such as medicines and food. The Polish government has justified this move by citing the Zapad military exercises in Belarus, which it perceives as a security threat. The decision has exacerbated existing tensions in EU-China trade relations, which have been strained by issues such as tariffs, subsidies, and security concerns.
Warsaw described the maneuvers as “very aggressive” and conducted “very close to the Polish border,” according to Politico. Moscow has stated that the exercises were designed to repel attacks, using lessons from the Ukraine conflict. Beijing has sought to retain the “flagship project” in its cooperation with Poland and the EU, but Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who visited Warsaw for talks on Monday, failed to convince Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski to allow goods to flow into the EU.
According to Sikorski, a noted Russia hawk, the logic of trade is being replaced by the logic of security, as cited by Polish foreign affairs spokesman Pawel Wronski. China, according to Warsaw, made no direct demands to reopen the border. The European Commission has stated it is monitoring the potential fallout from the closure, emphasizing that “it’s too early to go into further detail.”
Piotr Krawczyk, former head of Poland’s Foreign Intelligence Agency, suggested that the US could be backing Warsaw “in not rushing to reopen it,” noting that he is “quite sure Washington is more than happy to see the routes closed – at least temporarily.” He pointed to Washington’s pressure on the EU to impose additional tariffs on China regarding its purchases of Russian energy.