Building bridges

Kaligaeva says her Belarusian friends have become interested in regional initiatives like the SCO and BRI because "they believe they will actually gain tangible benefits and better employment opportunities".She says both countries produce scientists, engineers and technology workers, and that the China-Belarus comprehensive strategic partnership can bring talent to work together on common projects to boost the development of high-tech industry and business activities. She gives the example of the China-Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park, an infrastructure project along the BRI, to illustrate how bilateral cooperation will create new demands for jobs in high-tech manufacturing such as mechanical engineering, electronics, telecommunication, chemistry, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, new materials, logistics, e-commerce and big data.

Looking ahead into the future, Kaligaeva says Belarusian youth pay close attention to the creation of a regional center for Sinology and a hub of China studies, as recently suggested by Lukashenko.

This would take Confucius Institute and Chinese-language learning to the next level and enable a more comprehensive academic understanding of China's past, present and future.

She says this could be a drawn-out process but expresses her interest in making a contribution to it by participating.

In the meantime, she plans to continue developing both her personal and professional networks with other scholars in order to improve her understanding of diplomacy and launch a career that will allow her to serve as a "bridge "between China and Belarus.

The writer is a student ambassador at the Global Communication Office, Tsinghua University.