China and Central Europe: A love affair that was never meant to be?
China and Central Europe: A love affair that was never meant to be?
WRITTEN BY TAMÁS MATURA
13 July 2021
The so-called 16 + 1 cooperation established in 2011-2012, was meant to forge closer political and economic relations between China and the sixteen countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The initiative, however, has come under a lot of criticism since its emergence.
The West worries that China has effectively bought the political sympathies of the CEE countries in exchange for economic advantages and consequently Beijing has established such a strong influence in the region that it endangers the integrity of the EU’s China policy. In recent months, however, Beijing’s presence in the region has started to decline. Several countries have expressed their deep disappointment with the lack of tangible economic results and with Lithuania’s recent departure from the 16+1 framework, the whole cooperation mechanism has fallen into an existential crisis.
China’s Trojan Horse in the EU? Not so fast!
The first Chinese−Central and Eastern European meeting in Budapest in 2011 was so successful that Beijing decided to establish the mechanism of regular summits of prime ministers of the sixteen Central and Eastern European leaders and the Chinese Premier. This pseudo-organisation, later known as the16 + 1 (and with the accession of Greece in 2019, the 17+1), included eleven EU member states and five Western Balkan countries. European states were drawn towards forging lucrative economic and business ties with the fast-growing Chinese market since the 2008 global financial crisis and the Eurozone crisis had a major impact on their national economies.
China has indeed made mistakes in its courtship of the region in the past decade. Together with CEE governments, it raised expectations it could not fulfil and followed a top-down approach targeting the elites of CEE societies instead of winning the hearts and minds of the people.
However, the exclusive club created by the union's post-communist Eastern members triggered major concerns and criticism around Western Europe and within EU institutions. For instance, a Western diplomat observed, “China and its Eastern European partners were building a new Berlin Wall in the middle of the EU” in 2013. A few years later, another representative of a Western EU member state said, “China bought the Central European states, and now they are merely puppets on Beijing’s fingers”. The prestigious German daily Handelsblatt wrote in 2018 that “EU officials said China was trying to divide Europe to strengthen its hand in relations with individual member states. Countries such as Hungary and Greece, which both rely on Chinese investment, have in the past shown they’re susceptible to pressure from China”.
Such accusations were not entirely groundless, since certain Central and Eastern European countries that had established or were hoping to establish close relations with China went against the EU’s stand several times in recent years. For instance, Hungary and Greece blocked the union’s common declaration concerning the South China Sea, and Hungary openly supported the acceptance of China’s market economy status, which the EU was against. The EU was unable to unanimously condemn China for arresting and allegedly torturing human rights lawyers in March 2017 due to Hungary’s objection. Czech President Miloš Zeman was the EU’s only leader who attended the controversial military parade organised in Beijing to commemorate the anniversary of the end of World War II, while Western countries boycotted the event because of the parade’s nationalist overtones and China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy. Furthermore, several issues suggest that the countries of the 16 + 1 became more tolerant of Beijing’s foreign and home policies. The appearance of large billboards hailing Xi Jinping in Belgrade last year, and President Vučić declaration that Xi was his and all Serbians’ friend and brother are spectacular examples.
However, the details of economic cooperation between China and its CEE partners show that trade and investment relations are a far cry from the success story presented. CEE countries show minimal trade dependence on the PRC and the weight of the Chinese market has only grown slightly in their exports. Exports from the eleven EU members to China only grew from 0.97 per cent in 2009 to 1.3 per cent in 2018, rendering the Chinese market negligible for the Eastern members of the EU. When it comes to investor relations, the picture looks even less promising. As the results of a recent research report show, despite all initial expectations, China's FDI position in the CEE countries has remained modest. Except for Hungary and Romania, Chinese investment proportionally plays a more important role in Western European countries than in any of the EU members of the 17+1. Furthermore, when actual financial inflows are considered instead of FDI figures, the relevance of China diminishes further in most CEE countries.
The lack of meaningful economic results has unleashed a wave of criticism and disappointment around many CEE countries in the last few years. Even well-known fans of China, like President Zeman, have complained about China’s failure to live up to its promises. Since mid-2020, foreign policy analysts and China experts have been explaining how China lost the region, and Lithuania’s withdrawal from the 17+1 in early 2021 has stimulated further debate on the issue.
China is not that important after all
Indeed, unfulfilled promises, a clash of political values, increased pressure from the US and the COVID-19 pandemic have all taken their toll on cooperation between China and the CEE countries. But maybe the 16+1 was never meant to last long for several reasons. First, China does not play a geopolitical role in Europe, therefore CEE countries must still rely on the EU and the US, which makes Beijing a political partner of secondary importance. Second, Central European societies are all suspicious of communist China. Though Beijing may have believed that similar historical records of the two sides could help in getting along with each other, in reality, it hampers China’s soft power in the EU members of the region. According to a recent survey, in most EU countries the absolute or relative majority of the population nurtures negative views of China, does not trust Beijing, and their feelings have worsened in the past three years.
Third, as the MapInfluenCE project has presented in two recent publications, the media in the core countries of the region has never been fond of China — articles with negative messages about China have always outnumbered positive ones by a wide margin. Current hot topics like Chinese investment or the development of 5G networks are no exceptions either, as media coverage of both topics depicts the role of Beijing in a negative way in the Visegrad 4 countries. Of course, China’s position is still strong in some of the non-EU member Western Balkan countries, but the close relationship between Belgrade and Beijing does not have a significant impact on the common China policy of the EU. Fourth, most mainstream political parties in the core countries have always had reservations about China, and thus there has never been widespread political support for pro-China policies in the region; these were rather pursued by individual political leaders like Mr Zeman of Czechia, Mr Orbán of Hungary, or Mr Ponta of Romania. Consequently, when pro-China politicians drop out of power, China almost instantly loses its positions in their respective countries.
China has indeed made mistakes in its courtship of the region in the past decade. Together with CEE governments, it raised expectations it could not fulfil and followed a top-down approach targeting the elites of CEE societies instead of winning the hearts and minds of the people. However, the whole initiative was built on sand as neither civil society, political parties or the media were in favour of pro-China policies, and with the demise of the mirage of economic benefits, CEE countries are returning where they have always belonged, the West.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Tamás Matura, PhD, is the Founder of the Central and Eastern European Center for Asian Studies and Assistant Professor of Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary. Image credit: Wikimedia.