Will the once dormant China-CEE relations see a rival led by Poland and Slovakia?
Starting on Saturday 22 June, President Andrzej Duda of Poland will be paying a five-day state visit to China. While Duda meets his “old friend” Xi Jinping, several warning signs are pointing to a potential re-awakening of China’s cooperation with the broader CEE region under the 14+1 framework.
The 16+1 (or 14+1 to be precise) format for cooperation between China and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has been long deemed a “zombie initiative” – one that failed to deliver on its economic promises and capitalise on the political goodwill of all parties involved.
Although over a decade ago, when the format was first established, China seemed convincing to local elites in its efforts to promote the idea of “win-win cooperation” – Beijing’s preferred slogan used extensively when reaching out to CEE – the momentum was lost by the end of the past decade.
However, China’s handling of the pandemic, the accelerating Sino-American rivalry, and, most recently, Beijing’s tacit approval for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, have significantly worsened China’s image in many CEE states. This has also translated into the 16+1 platform becoming politically impotent, with three Baltic states abandoning the initiative, and others unwilling to host its annual summits and other related events.
Most recently, however, early signs of what might appear as attempts to revive the idea of China-CEE cooperation seem visible.
While the “usual suspects” such as Hungary and Serbia have been recently reaffirmed as China’s top regional partners during Xi Jinping’s trip to Europe in May 2024, other CEE states express their willingness to engage with Beijing too, albeit in a more low-key manner and not necessarily by evoking the 16/14+1 “label”.
Poland: an unlikely re-engager
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has been long rumoured to be planning his trip to China this year.
Starting on 22 June, his long-awaited visit is a sign of the times: after Germany’s Olaf Scholz’s China trip in April this year, followed by Xi’s meeting with Macron in May, Duda wants to establish himself as yet another European leader to personally interact with Xi Jinping.
Duda has a long history of positioning himself as Xi Jinping’s “old friend”, a rhetoric traditionally nurtured by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to appeal to politicians’ egos.
“President Duda cherishes his profound friendship with President Xi Jinping”, said an official readout from the meeting between Jakub Kumoch – Poland’s ambassador to Beijing with close ties to Duda – and Liu Jianchao, Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, in December 2023. Duda himself made similar statements in the past, for example during the pandemic when he tried to leverage his ties with Xi to secure Chinese vaccines – an effort that backfired given the wider societal distrust towards vaccines, especially those made in China.
Duda’s upcoming visit is likely to revive similar vibes. Although Poland’s opposition to China’s stance on the war in Ukraine will be high on the agenda, the broader optics will most likely lead to a perception that re-engagement with Beijing is in Duda’s interest.
Importantly, the visit will take place against the backdrop of Poland’s new government working on amendments to its cybersecurity law that could have an impact on the involvement of Chinese tech firms in developing Poland’s 5G networks. According to Polish media reports, Chinese diplomats have been very active in raising this contentious issue ahead of Duda’s trip. This topic, and Duda’s potential involvement in watering down the regulations, appears as a potential bargaining chip to be exploited by Beijing in exchange for some minor concessions, potentially on the market opening front.
Ambassador Kumoch has been very active on social media, most notably X, where he regularly posts about his diplomatic activities. His content suggests a continued focus on improving market access for Polish agricultural products, including beef, and academic cooperation with Chinese universities.
On May 24, Kumoch also posted about the 18th Meeting of National Coordinators for China-CEEC Cooperation, where representatives of all 14 CEE states met with Deng Li, China’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs. The meeting suggests that some form of revival of the 14+1 format might be in the cards.
Overcoming five years of torpor
Participation of the Polish and other national coordinators at the meeting in Beijing is just one of the signs that Beijing is not yet ready to throw in the towel on outreach towards the CEE region.
At the moment, China seems to be in the process of implementing several activities, across multiple levels and areas of interaction, all framed under the “China-CEEC” rubric.
Shortly before the EU Parliamentary elections, China organised a junket trip for a group of CEE journalists and influencers, which included meetings at the Foreign Ministry, interactions with state- and Party-owned media, and discussions on media cooperation with All-China Journalists Association, a CCP-linked entity that serves the purpose of exercising control over Chinese media and individual journalists. The trip catered especially to anti-West voices in the CEE infosphere, as evidenced by the participation of Tibor Eliot Rostas, editor-in-chief of Slovak far-right disinformation outlet Zem&Vek.
This junket trip is not the only evidence that China is trying to revive the 14+1 platform.
In March 2024, the China-CEE Innovation Cooperation Centre circulated an invitation to the 2nd Think Tank Forum on Innovation Cooperation, to be held in Slovakia in June 2024. Per the Centre’s website, “It was established on the initiative of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the China-CEEC Summit 2021… Guided by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Research Center was established by the People’s Government of Ningbo Municipality.” The planned forum aims to foster cooperation in sensitive areas of “digital transformation, key technology cooperation, joint construction of digital infrastructure, and digital economy talent cooperation.”
Later this year, China is also planning to host municipalities’ representatives from the CEE region for a cooperation forum. Through the 12 years of the China-CEE Platform’s existence, similar fora took place on at least five separate occasions, the last of them most likely in 2021. Such fora allow China to formalise ties with CEE cities and regions, and cultivate ties with local political leaders.
Slovakia: Old friends back in power
The above-mentioned example of China’s cultivation of Rostas is just one example of how China has been re-starting ties with Slovakia in the last year, especially by promoting ties with extremist and populist elements. Slovakia’s position on China is not based on a domestic consensus but rather tends to change based on which segment of the political spectrum is in power.
This has been clearly visible in the run-up and aftermath of the September 2023 parliamentary elections, which ushered Robert Fico into his fourth non-consecutive premiership. Throughout the campaign, Fico and his populist SMER-SD party ran on the “all-azimuth” foreign policy platform, in essence promoting relations with China, Russia and other authoritarian regimes as beneficial for Slovakia.
SMER’s alignment with China was highlighted during the campaign, especially on the occasion of the 1st anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The party organised a press conference to publicise China’s peace plan. The plan received enthusiastic praise from SMER-SSD party members who applauded “The People’s Republic of China gave great hope to the whole world.” Interestingly, the press briefing was held immediately after the party’s representatives returned from a meeting at the Chinese Embassy in Slovakia.
“If the US and the EU had behaved like China, the war in Ukraine could have been over. China is proposing a peace plan on 24 February. The US and its vassal the EU propose war to the last Ukrainian without victory,” claimed Robert Fico.
When it comes to particulars of cooperating with China, two proposals of the Slovak government stand out. First, governmental representatives are increasingly talking about inviting Chinese companies into tenders for infrastructure construction, including railways, highway bridges and tunnels. This was already discussed with the Chinese partners during the early June visit to China by Minister of Transport Jozef Ráž.
Secondly, and on the political side of the relationship, Fico has been promoting the idea of concluding a strategic partnership with China. The agreement was supposed to be signed on the occasion of June’s visit to China by Fico himself, a plan which was derailed by the failed assassination attempt against his life in May. Still, it is expected that the visit will happen once Fico’s health state allows him to make the trip.
New dynamics for China-CEE cooperation?
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, China-CEE cooperation has been steadily declining. Public opinion of China worsened dramatically, and relations with China started to be increasingly seen not just in economic, but also in national security terms. The pre-pandemic summit of the platform held in Dubrovnik in 2019 remains the last in-person meeting of the Chinese and CEE heads of state (an online meeting was held in 2021). Since then, there has been a lack of appetite to hold another in-person, high-level meeting.
However, the recently held meeting of the national coordinators, as well as the organisation of several sub-national activities in a short succession indicates, that tides might be changing, and some sort of revival of the 14+1 might be imminent.
New developments in both Slovakia and Poland also point to Beijing potentially relying on old and new friends (respectively), alongside Budapest and Belgrade, who at one point seemed to be China’s last renaming allies in the CEE region. This is a space, to be closely watched.
The article was originally published by Visegrad Insight.
