Central and Jap Europe has been probably the most fascinating areas to comply with when it comes to the Chinese language international presence. When China stepped up its engagement with the area by way of its 16+1 initiative in 2012, the talk in Europe quickly after began to revolve across the notion of the area serving as a “Computer virus” for China to enter the continent. Not too long ago, the discourse has modified considerably, with many pointing to Lithuania and Czechia as essentially the most hawkish European international locations on China and representing a souring of the area’s views of Beijing.
Neither of the exaggerated narratives manages to color an correct image of the various engagement of the CEE’s international locations with China, which have adopted completely different trajectories.
In 2024, we will roughly observe three groupings of CEE international locations when it comes to their China coverage. The primary group consists of Hungary and Serbia, the remaining “China loyalists” within the area, with whom China has been stepping up engagement throughout the board. The 2 international locations’ leaders use robust ties with China as an essential pillar of their international coverage. The shut ties can be cemented by the upcoming go to of Chinese language President Xi Jinping to Budapest and Belgrade.
There’s a second group represented by the Baltics and Czechia, which presently have little or no curiosity in growing any form of cooperation with Beijing and principally see China by way of a safety lens. Whereas the Baltics have already left the Chinese language-led 16+1 format, Prague has been mulling it for a while.
Nevertheless, it’s the third group that’s the largest, together with international locations which now perceive the tradeoffs of cooperation with China, however on the identical time are nonetheless prepared to develop mainly financial ties and need to maintain channels open. On this group, Poland might be essentially the most salient instance.
Whereas Hungary and Serbia proceed to be outliers which might be extra doubtless than to not undermine any widespread method to Beijing, this doesn’t apply to the entire area. Constructing upon a various image of the area’s engagement with China, it’s time to step out from the constraints of simplistic narratives and transfer to occupied with what may be executed to make use of the area’s collected expertise with coping with China during the last decade and empower the CEE international locations’ international insurance policies. Extra particularly, it’s essential to grasp how the CEE international locations’ expertise with China over the previous decade can inform their contribution to the EU, and extra extensively, the European method to Beijing.
A new research printed by the China Observers in Central and Jap Europe (CHOICE) platform, and written by the authors of this text, seeks to current a solution to the query. It tackles the three European-wide points pertaining to China the place the CEE international locations have left a major footprint and the place they’ll additional contribute to shaping the European method: the talk on strategic autonomy, Sino-Russian ties and Beijing’s place on the Ukraine warfare, and relations with Taiwan.
China has been selling globally its imaginative and prescient of a “cooperative multipolar world” as an alternative choice to the multilateral, rules-based order. In China’s world, the EU can be a pole, shaping its international coverage independently and fascinating with China despite U.S. opposition. The research dissects these Chinese language ambitions to pinpoint that small and medium-sized states, like most European and particularly CEE international locations, wouldn’t be capable of survive and thrive except they’ll depend on worldwide legislation, organizations the place their vote issues, and a powerful EU to guard their pursuits. On the identical time, China has additionally been attempting to take advantage of variations and competitors between European states for its enterprise pursuits, decreasing the EU’s international affect, which paradoxically undermines its purpose of a multipolar world from inside. This supplies an extra argument to CEE international locations to be cautious of China’s international goals.
The warfare in Ukraine has critically challenged the EU’s ambition to grow to be a geopolitical actor, flagging inner divisions and exposing its dependence on the US as a safety supplier. Amid the uncertainty forward of the U.S. elections later this yr, the EU is confronted with tough coverage decisions and challenges. Probably the most urgent one is find out how to get “on top of things” so as to have the ability to defend its personal pursuits and the safety of its residents within the broadest phrases, from nationwide safety in mild of potential Russian aggression or hybrid assaults, to the safety of important infrastructure, provide chains, key investments, and many others.
In such a context, the EU wants to have the ability to depend on a broad alliance with like-minded international locations that face the identical challenges, and have each the necessity and need to work along with the EU. Whereas the US is arguably the important thing and strongest ally that almost all EU, and particularly CEE, international locations wouldn’t surrender for the sake of strategic autonomy, the candidate international locations for EU membership, primarily the Western Balkans, also needs to be included in related EU insurance policies. That will on one hand strengthen the strategic autonomy of the European continent and construct synergies with NATO, but additionally scale back the EU’s vulnerabilities and blind spots as these international locations wouldn’t present a foothold for China in a area that’s strategically essential and embedded in each the EU’s territory and insurance policies.
Final however not least, nearer relations with Taiwan, spearheaded by some CEE states like Lithuania and Czechia, provide beneficial insights into the best way cooperation with Taipei may be useful for each respective EU member states and the EU as a complete.
On the one hand, this newfound curiosity in cooperation with Taiwan displays the altering notion that assist for like-minded companions, even geographically distant ones, is strategically and normatively useful for smaller and medium-sized democracies. Given their geographic closeness to Russia, CEE international locations have a heightened sense of hazard emanating from Moscow’s revisionism. They’re additionally extra inclined to hyperlink China-Russia strategic cooperation with a bigger scheme to reframe the prevailing world order to the liking of Beijing and Moscow. That is seen as a possible risk, and cooperation with Taiwan illustrates how CEE international locations need to present solidarity and study from the experiences of the island nation.
Furthermore, there’s a rising urge for food for financial cooperation with Taiwan, particularly in high-tech and rising applied sciences, with the Taiwanese semiconductor business seen as a beneficial asset to capitalize on when it comes to tangible tasks, for instance by attracting FDI from Taiwan.
Concurrently, CEE experiences additionally level towards some limitations in the best way cooperation with Taiwan has been perceived. In some instances, the developmental trajectory of relations with Taipei has adopted an analogous path as cooperation with Beijing throughout its “honeymoon” part a decade in the past. In different phrases, expectations ought to be stored in examine to keep away from a “Taiwan fatigue,” if native expectations can’t be matched by actual developments. If each CEE and the EU need to preserve a steady relationship with Taiwan, it ought to neither be instrumentalized nor idealized.
It’s excessive time to suppose greater when it comes to CEE international locations’ China insurance policies, and ask how they match into the bigger image of European China coverage. Nevertheless, this isn’t nearly getting a seat on the desk, the place CEE international locations have usually been ignored previously, however proactively shaping the EU’s agenda. One instance the place the voice of the international locations within the area has not been heard as a lot because it ought to have is the difficulty of electrical automobiles (EVs), which is now on the highest of the European agenda.
With particularly the V4 international locations depending on conventional automotive industries centered round Germany, the coming onslaught of Chinese language EV imports and the ensuing problem to the European business poses important inquiries to the way forward for the international locations’ economies. On the identical time, the rising Chinese language investments within the EV sector in V4 international locations, with out indicators of them bringing expertise transfers, entail new challenges when it comes to European technological autonomy. Extra broadly, the difficulty considerations the EU’s means to take care of its competitiveness and put itself within the driver’s seat of ongoing geopolitical and geoeconomic adjustments. The voices from CEE have to be heard on this essential debate.