When Chinese leader Xi Jinping last visited Europe’s former communist east in 2016, the Czech Republic’s president welcomed the country for a three-day flag-raising state visit and made it a prime destination for Chinese investment. It was offered as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier.”
The ship was later sunk by China’s support for Russia in the Ukraine war and bitter disappointment over the project, which never materialized. It also upended many of the high hopes that had spread to Eastern and Central Europe for the big bucks of Chinese money.
So when Mr. Xi returned to the region this week after a visit to France, he headed to Serbia, arriving there late Tuesday, before moving on to Hungary later that week. These two countries have long had authoritarian leaders and continue to provide a safe haven. China’s political and economic turmoil is becoming increasingly turbulent.
“Czechs, Poles and just about everyone else are really angry with China because of the war,” said Tamás Matula, a foreign relations scholar at Budapest’s Corvinus University. “But in Hungary, that doesn’t matter, at least not for the government,” said Matura, of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
China’s pro-Kremlin position on the Ukraine war is also reflected in Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić, who, like Orbán, has maintained friendly relations with Russia and China while securing billions of dollars in Chinese investment. It doesn’t matter to the president either.
In an interview with Chinese state television this week, Vucic foreshadowed the flattery that would dominate Xi’s visit, saying: “There are thousands of things we can and should learn from our Chinese friends.” said the Serbian president.
“Taiwan is fully China,” he added.
Czech President Miloš Zeman, who welcomed Mr Xi in 2016, was replaced last year by former NATO senior general Petr Pavel. Pavel met with the president of Taiwan, which Beijing claims is part of its territory, and said in an interview that China is “not a friendly country,” angering Beijing. Chinese investment in the Czech Republic has slowed to a trickle.
Meanwhile, Chinese money flowed into Hungary and Serbia, strengthening close ties fueled by a shared wariness of the United States.
China’s flagship infrastructure project in the region, a high-speed rail link between Belgrade and Budapest, has been delayed due to regulatory and other issues. Of the approximately 200 miles of planned track, only about 60 miles are operational after five years of work. It’s a slow pace for a project that Beijing sees as a key part of Mr. Xi’s foreign policy “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure plan.
However, China’s promised investments in other projects have been rushed forward, totaling nearly $20 billion, according to the Serbian Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, and about the same amount in Hungary, including loans, but with conditions. is a secret.
Ivana Karasková, a Czech researcher at the Institute for International Affairs, an independent research organization in Prague, said Hungary and Serbia were working “not just for economic gain, but also to show their domestic voters that they are pursuing independent policies.” He also said that he has high hopes for China. This proves to the European Union and the United States that “they are not the only game in the game,” Karaskova said.
China “understands this dynamic,” he added, and Mr. Xi is using it to increase his influence in Europe, both with the public and with institutions like the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union. It will seek to reverse steadily deteriorating public opinion towards China, he added. .
A survey of Eastern and Central European countries conducted last year by the Slovak research group Globsec found that “negative perceptions of China have soared,” particularly in the Baltic states and the Czech Republic. In Hungary, only 26% of those surveyed had a positive view of Mr. Xi, while 39% had a negative view. The rest are undecided.
However, Hungary under Mr. Orbán has become a “safe political space” for the Chinese government, regardless of what public opinion thinks, and there is hope that the European Union will soften its policy toward China and protect itself from the fallout. said Mathura. From the Ukraine war.
The convergence of economic and geopolitical interests is particularly evident in Serbia, which aspires to join the European Union but has balked at doing so because of the imposition of sanctions on Russia, and Kosovo. This has frustrated the EU’s efforts to mediate a settlement over the issue. Kosovo, once part of Serbia, declared itself an independent state after a NATO bombing campaign, but Serbia, with support from Russia and China, has refused to accept this status.
Mr. Xi’s arrival in Serbia on Tuesday coincided with the 25th anniversary of the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO jets during a 1999 bombing campaign. Three Chinese journalists were killed.
Aleksandar Mitic of the Belgrade Institute for International Political Economy said the incident, which many in China believe was not an accident, had created “strong emotional ties between Serbs and Chinese”. Ta.
As part of a series of government-sanctioned events in Belgrade ahead of Mr. Xi’s visit, Serbian communists on Monday chanted “Welcome the President” and “Kosovo is Serbia,” outside the Chinese Cultural Center in Belgrade. They unfurled a banner that read “Taiwan is China.” The site of the bombed embassy. They demanded that the street outside the center be renamed “Chinese Victims of NATO Aggression Street.”
Hungary is also furious at what it sees as bullying by the United States and Brussels, despite being a member of NATO and the European Union and receiving billions of euros in aid from them.
But Orbán’s main interest in China is money, and he wants to turn Hungary into a manufacturing hub for electric vehicles, batteries and other new technologies with the support of Chinese investors.
In just the past two years, China has pledged to invest more than $10 billion in Hungary, much of it in EV-related projects, at a time when the European Union has Concerned about their growing dominance, they are investigating whether Chinese EVs will enter China’s EV market. Manufacturers are unfairly subsidized and should be punished with high tariffs.
These assembly lines will take years to build, but in the long run they will help protect Chinese EV makers from future efforts by the European Union to prevent China from dominating the market through tariffs. Masu.
Tariffs on electric cars imported from China do not apply to electric cars assembled in Hungary, which allows goods to be shipped duty-free across the EU, but could affect parts imported from China to Hungarian factories. There is sex.
Unlike most parts of Europe, where governments change regularly, democratic turmoil could disrupt China’s investment plans, which are based on close ties to certain leaders, but Orbán and Vucic Both men have been in power for more than 10 years, and there are no signs of this happening. Go anywhere.
“The Chinese feel comfortable in Hungary,” Matura said. “The people may not like China very much, but the government likes China.”
Analysts say that by visiting Hungary and Serbia, Mr. thinking. And it shows that Mr. Xi has not given up on China’s diplomatic initiative, known as the 16+1, a grouping of China and former communist European countries built around Mr. Xi’s flagship “One Belt, One Road” plan. they say.
Back in 2012, enraged by the Ukraine war, the Baltic states formally left the grouping that had been the linchpin of China’s diplomacy in Europe throughout Mr. Xi’s rule. Countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania remain formally members, but most have left.
“The big debate among experts in the region right now is whether 16+1 is dead or just a zombie,” Mathura said.
