Belarus should follow steady development path like China: Lukashenko

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has shared his national development philosophy, saying he has sought to avoid any radical moves while developing his country in a steady and gradual manner as China has.

Lukashenko was speaking in a wide-ranging interview with the China Media Group (CMG) which aired on Friday ahead of his visit to China. The Belarusian president is set to participate in the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the northern port city of Tianjin before attending China's V-Day commemorations in Beijing.

Reflecting on his approach to development, Lukashenko stated that preserving Belarus' industrial system has been always a top priority, and said he ensured major strategic decisions were made to protect the country from outside interference from the West.

"After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, our economy was plunged into great difficulty, because the old system of cooperation had been so extensive. We used to source components, spare parts and resources from Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic republics, assemble them into finished goods, and then sell them both inside the Soviet Union and abroad. When that chain broke apart, the impact on us was devastating. Our priority had to be preserving the industrial system, and that was the starting point of our policy. If at that time we had blindly turned to the West, rather than focusing on development as China did, our country would have fallen apart long ago. The economic system would have collapsed, and we would have ended up like some other post-Soviet states -- caught in endless cycles of 'color revolutions', which in reality meant submission to the West," he said.

First elected president of Belarus in 1994, Lukashenko secured his seventh term in office after winning the country's presidential election earlier this year, and said he has been grateful to have the "trust" of his nation.

"Looking back, I often wonder why the people chose to entrust the country to someone as inexperienced as I was then. That trust has stayed with me, and it has been my greatest source of motivation in fulfilling my duties," he said.

Lukashenko also hailed China's development model as something that can be emulated in Belarus, believing this can help lead the nation towards a bright future.

"Belarus, in my view, should follow a path like China’s — steady, deliberate, avoiding rash leaps or radical moves. I have always said development must be gradual. Like China, we must act prudently, carefully assess the situation in full, and lead the nation and society calmly towards the future it deserves," he said.

Belarus should follow steady development path like China: Lukashenko

Attempts to curb China's scientific and technological advancement are futile, a fact that has already been proven, said Kishore Mahbubani, former permanent representative of Singapore to the United Nations, in an interview aired Friday.

In an exclusive interview with China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing, Mahbubani said he had stated this position in one of his articles published in the United States.

"Actually, I published an article, you know the two, I guess two leading journals in the United States on international relations. One is Foreign Affairs and the other is Foreign Policy. And last year I co-authored an article with two other co-authors, saying that all the efforts to stop China's scientific and technological development will fail. And it has failed always. You know, for example, the Soviet Union tried to prevent the spread of nuclear technology to China, China develops its own. The United States didn't want to share its technology on international space station with China. China develops its own space station. So clearly, efforts to stop China in the area of scientific innovation and technological development have failed. And so it'd be wiser for the West, including United States, to work with China other than to try and stop China seek development," he said.

Regarding China's progress on robots, Mahbubani said China is leading the world in the sector and hopes the country will share its expertise with the rest of the world.

"If there's one country that is preparing for the future well, it is China, because one in six human beings in the world is Chinese. But one in three robots in the world is Chinese, and one in two baby robots being born every day is Chinese. So China is producing far more robots than any other country is. So clearly it's preparing for the world of the future when we will have, for example, labor shortages, as you know, as you develop an aging society. So China is wisely investing in robots. But I hope that China will also share its learning and expertise with other countries. Also because the robots like that can also be helpful even to developing countries cause you can enhance the productivity of their populations, of their factories and so on so forth. So the world should be happy that China is leading the world in manufacturing, producing robots," he said.

Attempts to stop China's sci-tech development doomed to fail: former Singaporean diplomat