For eastern Europe, China talks a good line, but fails to deliver the goods
 China talks a good line in central and eastern Europe, but fails to deliver on promises, says Richard Turcsanyi, deputy director at Institute of Asian Studies at Bratislava, Slovakia, and assistant professor at Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic.
Speaking to a select group at Hong Kong University, Dr Turcsanyi traced the history of Chinese relations and their current status with the ex-communist 16+1 group, which includes China as the one, and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Macedonia as the 16.
The 16 are now part the Central Eastern European (CEE) bloc within the capitalist European Union and under umbrella of NATO military alliance, which includes the US and Canada.
But as Dr Turcsanyi, sees it, this transfer was not a simply from one political and economic system to another, but rather a still evolving bi- and multi-lateral relationships between and among the Eastern Europe Community, the rest of Europe as well as with China.
Not only are there tensions and rivalries within this Chinese-inspired group, which owes its existence to Beijing promises of investment, there are also tensions with the EU itself and its members. At a time the EU desperately needs unity as Brexit and populist nationalism erupts and strengthens with each election, they suspect that China may be up to no good exploiting the centrifugal forces which have so recently found legitimate expression in the existence of these new nation states after decades if not centuries of suppression.
Hungary, for example, supported China in its South China Sea position and blocked an EU statement on human rights that Beijing found offensive, not to mention opposing a Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling that declared China's claim to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea to be illegal.
Dr Turcsanyi sees the present state of play in Chinese economic relations with the CEE as one of massive swings of Beijing policy. In Deng Xiaoping's day, the focus was on political relations with eastern Europe. Then there was a swing to economic relations in the day of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiaboa and now with the leadership of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang it has swung back to the political - to the rising impatience of eastern Europeans, who want to see more trade and investment to and from China.
In 2012, Premier Wen Jiabao stated that bilateral China-CEE trade should reach US$100 billion by 2015. "But according to UNCTAD [United National Conference of Trade and Development] data, trade for 2015 was roughly $80 billion, leaving plenty of space for growth, especially when it comes to promoting CEE exports to China," said Dr Turcsanyi.
"Then during Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2016 visit, investments it was said that EUR3 billion (US$3.6 billion) was to arrive by the end of that year and more in following years," he said.
"Today, the Czech Republic is still waiting on those investments, and a consensus has formed that the expectations were inflated. The previous five years of China-CEE cooperation have produced little in the way of positive economic outcomes, and it is difficult to speak of a Chinese economic presence in the region that could play any significant influence or that has been at a considerable rise."
This may change, he said, but "today's rhetoric is no different from that of five years ago - we are still looking toward the future when talking about the Chinese economic presence in CEE".
The Budapest summit of 16+1 premiers last November, changed little. The highlight was China promising to invest EUR3 billion in infrastructure projects in the region - something which China has been saying since 2014.
Another outcome was the announcement that the construction deal for the Budapest-Belgrade railway will be offered in a public tender. "Is this real or is the tender a formality that moves the project off for a few years?" he said.
Despite much diplomatic bustle, in which MoUs were signed, conferences held, declarations made and media interviews conducted, not much else happens, Dr Turcsanyi said.
"While it remains questionable what role China will play in the economic development of the region, it is almost guaranteed that Western Europe will maintain its dominant position in the area.
"It may not be the best position for CEE to be in, so dependent toward one direction, but there is little that can be done - geographic and structural economic factors talk louder than wishful thinking," he said.
"If China continues raising its stakes ever higher, it risks that disappointment will mount. If CEE countries sacrifice too much for the development of relations with China, they may find themselves with far worse relationships with their main partners in western Europe and little benefits from China.
Ironically, it is when relations are bad with CEE countries that they get better treatment from China in terms of concrete gains. "When relations are improved, or improving, that is when there is little investment or trade from China. This is not an encouraging way to operate," he said.
As Dr Turcsanyi sees it, China and CEE should take into account Western Europe's worries too. "On the other hand, Western Europe should also acknowledge that the CEE countries have legitimate right to develop separate relations with China within a bilateral setting," he said.
He told his HKU audience that the 16+1 scheme was a sub-unit of China's much vaunted Belt and Road Initiative, the ambitious plan to install link-up infrastructure, a highway here, a bridge there. Railways in Africa, a tunnel somewhere else. China might build it, provide financing and expertise. The idea is, through various means, and with various levels of participation, to facilitate communications from Asia to Europe and throughout the south seas and Africa.
Both are networks of bilateral relations. As indeed the non-communist Visegrad Group, or Visegrad Four, named after the place of their first meeting in Visegrad, Bosnia, and now referred to as the V4, a cultural and political alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, formed from high-income countries after the fall of European communism in 1989-90.
To the EU's mind, these separate relations with China should follow Europe's common approach, in the same way as any Western European country should do in its independent dealing with China. At the end of the day, China is a hugely important partner for the EU and can be an important complementary partner of the CEE countries as well, he said. |
