Warsaw has claimed the Zapad military drills in neighboring Belarus justify the move to block rail freight<\/p>\n
Poland\u2019s decision to close its border with Belarus has caused major disruption to a key corridor for rail freight traffic between China and the EU, according to Politico.\u00a0
\nThe route affected by the closure normally accounts for approximately\u00a0\u20ac25 billion per year in freight traffic between China and the EU. All cargo is currently blocked, including time-sensitive shipments such as medicine and food.
\nWarsaw has claimed the closure\u00a0is \u201crelated to the Russian-Belarusian \u2018Zapad-2025\u2019 exercises,\u201d\u00a0held in neighboring Belarus on September 12-16. The Zapad drills were attended by international military delegations, including from the US and India, and are staged by Moscow and Minsk roughly every four years.
\nThe closure compounds existing frictions over tariffs, subsidies, and security concerns that have long pressured EU-China trade ties.
\nWarsaw described the maneuvers as \u201cvery aggressive\u201d and conducted \u201cvery close to the Polish border.\u201d\u00a0Moscow has said the exercises were designed to repel attacks, using lessons from the Ukraine conflict.
\nBeijing has sought to retain the \u201cflagship project\u201d\u00a0in China\u2019s cooperation with Poland and the EU.\u00a0However,\u00a0Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who flew to Warsaw for talks on Monday, could not convince his Polish counterpart, Radoslaw Sikorski, to allow the goods to flow into the EU.
\nAccording to Sikorski, a noted Russia hawk, \u201cthe logic of trade\u201d was being replaced by \u201cthe logic of security,\u201d\u00a0Politico reported, citing Polish foreign affairs spokesman Pawel Wronski. China, according to Warsaw, made no direct demands to reopen the border.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
NATO state shuts border with Russian ally<\/p>\n
The European Commission has said it is monitoring the potential fallout from the closure, adding that \u201cit\u2019s too early to go into further detail.\u201d\u00a0
\nPiotr Krawczyk, former head of Poland\u2019s Foreign Intelligence Agency, suggested the US could be backing Warsaw \u201cin not rushing to reopen it,\u201d saying he is \u201cquite sure Washington is more than happy to see the routes closed \u2013 at least temporarily.\u201d\u00a0
\nHe pointed to Washington\u2019s pressure on the EU to slap extra tariffs on China over its purchases of Russian energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Warsaw has claimed the Zapad military drills in neighboring Belarus justify the move to block rail freight Poland\u2019s decision to close its border with Belarus has caused major disruption to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t