Content of reference:
Poland closed the border of Belarus due to the White Russian military exercises and drone incidents, resulting in the interruption of the Central European line, with about 300 trains stalling for less than a week, transportation costs and time exploding. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of our country is pressured to throw down the trade in rare lands and agricultural products, but Poland has insisted on security priority and has not reopened the border for the time being. 90% of China's cargo shipments are blocked, worth $294 billion in 2024, and our related investment in the Belarusian Railways is also affected.
First, due to the Russian drone invasion, and subsequent Russian-British military exercises on the Polish border, Poland decided to close the border and block the border transit point to Belarus.
On September 12, Poland issued an official statement saying that due to the Russian-Belarusian Zapad exercise over the Polish border, transit points to Belarus have been closed since that day: the bus Terespol-Brest, the truck Kukuryki-Kozłowiczy and three freight railways: Kuźnica Białostocka-Grodno, Siemianówka-Svislocz, Terespol-Brest.
Poland announced that the ban would take effect until further notice following a Russian drone attack on Poland on Sept. 10, Poland's Minister of Interior and Administration Marcin Kierwiński explained at a press conference releasing the statement. He said: "When we are sure that the safety of the Poles is guaranteed and we are not threatened by any provocation, we will resume operations".
The picture above shows three railway crossing points between Poland and Belarus blocked by Poland.
Poland’s closure of transit routes, including railway transit points, aims to force Russia and Belarus to ease the situation, but it also has side effects – it has blocked the transit of trains from China, while Chinains friendly relations with Moscow and Minsk.
After the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs shouted, Foreign Minister Wang Yi personally visited Poland, possibly also delivered to Poland imported its agricultural products and supplied it with rare-earth olive branches.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Ken said on September 11 that "the China-European Railway Line is a flagship project of China-China-European cooperation ... in line with the common interests of both sides".
On September 15, Foreign Minister Wang Yi went to Warsaw to meet with Polish President Karol Narocki for three hours. The main content of the talks was Warsaw's September 11 order to close all traffic at all border crossings with Belarus and bilateral trade between the two countries.
On September 16, the United Morning Post said: "China's official notification that China and Poland discussed the issue of Chinese rare earth export licenses to Poland, also mentioned to promote the access of Polish agro-food products to China.
Some people in the country said on their media platforms that it was like two candies delivered to Poland.
The first sweet date was the supply of rare earth metals to Poland. These people fabricated that Poland was eager to write "critical minerals" into its own supply chain-it didn't have to stick to the EU's political correctness of "de-risking".
The second sweetheart is the import of Polish agricultural products.Polish agricultural products for years wanted to massive tariffs, the Chinese side at this time "promote access", the surface is reciprocal, and the practice precisely binds Poland to the chain of "interconnection" to the west.
These people say, because of these two sweetheads, the ranks are hopeful!
However, those who wrote these comments ignored three things:
First, Poland is a member of the European Union and an important supporter of the European Union, and it is wrong to regard Poland as Hungary without adhering to the political correct argument of the EU "to take risks".
Poland’s weapons rely mainly on the United States and England.As NATO’s frontline close to the White Swan, NATO’s weapons supplies to Poland are never shy.Poland has no large-scale chip industry, no electric car industry and military industry, and rare land is not important to it.
Third, Poland’s agricultural exports do not lack markets.
Therefore, Poland announced the closure of its border because of the Russian-Belarusian military exercise. Now that the military exercise is over, our foreign minister has also visited Warsaw, but there is no news of the reopening.
3. It would rather lose a large amount of transit fees than agree to release the China-Europe train. What does Poland want?
In fact, on September 15th, our foreign minister led a team in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, and the communication with the Polish Deputy Prime Minister and President actually made little progress because of Poland's homeland security factors.
On September 16, media in Poland said that China's top diplomat's attempt to end Warsaw's order to halt all rail traffic from Belarus had failed, leaving hundreds of wagons loaded with Chinese electronics and frozen fish stranded on the east side of the border, with more trains arriving every day.
On September 15, logistyca.rp.pl (Polish freight industry observer Polish Freight Analysis Group) published an opinion article saying that Poland's closure of border crossings may prompt Beijing to intervene in Moscow and Minsk, because 90% of railway transportation between China and the European Union passes through Poland.
According to Polish television channel RTR, Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Paweł Wroński said on Monday that Warsaw hopes Beijing can stop Russia’s “destructive actions” in the war with Ukraine.
Paweł Wroński said: "We draw the attention of our Chinese partners to Russia's destructive actions … We are making a decision (to close the Belarusian border), which is also costly for Poland, but due to repeated provocations by Russia and Belarus, our country has to make this decision... first you have to take care of security, and then you calculate the cost".
At 9 p.m. on September 18, Saburo checked three of Poland's largest media outlets and found that Poland's lockdown was still in effect. The China-Europe railway is still blocked.
Polish media reports tell us that Russia was the initiator of forcing Poland to close its border. Instead of putting pressure on Russia, it was beyond the expectation of Poles to consult with Poland. After all, Europe, including Poland, has no trust in Russia's commitments, because the Kremlin's commitments never count. Therefore, Poland closed its border to prevent Russia and Belarus from invading Poland by taking advantage of fake military exercises! After the military exercise, it continued to be closed because of the lessons learned from the past. Three and a half years ago, wasn't it also after the Russian-Belarusian military exercise that Russia and his brothers said it was impossible to invade Ukraine. Was the United States spreading false news while sharpening its knife against Ukraine? You must have the intention to harm others, and you must have the intention to guard against Russia! From the Polish point of view, their vigilance is completely understandable.
How much does the interruption of the Central European line affect our interests?
Poland’s closure of its border with Belarus has led to a break in the Central European ranks, and the impact on us is reflected in at least two aspects.
First, the transportation cost and transportation time of our exports to Europe have increased significantly.
According to an analysis published by the semi-independent Belarusian Railway Workers’ Association, between 80 and 90 trains a day crossed the Belarusian-Polish border before the ban was enforced, of which 20 to 30 trains were already loaded in China, transporting goods mainly to the West for customers in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Since the Polish ban came into force, the typical container trains of the Belarusian national railway are 700-900 meters long, with about two western trains accumulating every day at the border, and the Belarusian national railway will exhaust available side tracks in a week or less.
As the Belarusian Railway Workers’ Association pointed out in this article on its website (pictured above) “This has already caused serious obstacles to the operation of local trains... The average length of a train is about 800m, which would be about 80-110 km of tracks specifically designed for train parking. Even with the optimized allocation of stations and spare fleets, there will be a shortage of free tracks on the Belarusian railway in 7-10 days.
According to logistyca.rp.pl, 90% of rail freight between China and the EU passes through Poland, and in 2024, rail traffic between China and Europe increased by 10.6% to 745,900 TEUs (20-foot standard containers or equivalent) entered EU countries via Belarus. Among them, the value of goods shipped from China to the EU is approximately US $29.4 billion, an increase of 84.9% over 2023. But since the 12th, the flow of these goods has now stopped.
Second, it has a greater impact on our investment in Belarus and Central Europe.
As part of the Silk Road Initiative, China has made substantial investments through the Export Bank in a road, air and rail logistics hub east of the Belarusian capital Minsk, serving as its main base for freight transportation to Europe via Russia and Belarus.
Chinese companies have also upgraded Belarus’s railway infrastructure by investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the electrification of the Minsk-Gomely line and improving the high-speed passage capacity of the Brest-Minsk line.
In an interview with Belarusian national news agency Belta on Tuesday, Belarusian Customs Committee Chairman Vladimir Olovsky said that the Belarusian government “is ready to resume dialogue with Polish colleagues in any form at any time ... unfortunately, the kind of communication and dialogue we had with the Polish Customs in the past has disappeared.”
Poland stopped trade-related coordination with Belarus in 2022 and since then contacts between Polish and Belarusian border officials have been extremely limited and sometimes even hostile.
The Author: Xu三郎