Any connectivity project – especially, on the scale of the BRI – is likely to have unexpected results. The main unintended effect of the China-CEE “16+1 platform” has been the criticism from the EU. Multiple high-level summits, business meetings, and statements by representatives of the CEE countries and China seem to be framing a new… Continue reading The Unintended Effects of China’s Silk Roads in Central and Eastern Europe
Matej Šimalčík contributed with a chapter on Slovakia to a publication titled Comparative Analysis of the Approach towards China: V4+ and One Belt One Road. The publication has been prepared within the framework of the project Comparative Analysis of the Approach towards China: V4+ and One Belt One Road financed by the International Visegrad Fund… Continue reading V4+ and One Belt One Road
The recent Czech experience allows one to draw two conclusions concerning China’s economic statecraft in CEE. The first is that there is indeed a conscious attempt to develop a coordinated strategy of economic statecraft using Chinese commercial actors such as CEFC and CITIC. The second is that Beijing’s control of its commercial actors is variable… Continue reading China’s economic statecraft in the Czech Republic: When Chinese businesses go rogue
The following text is a summary of an invitation-only seminar organized by the Institute of Asian Studies (IAS) in Bratislava in April 2019, attended by the representatives of several ministries and state bodies, experts from universities and think-tanks as well as journalists. The summary presents an interpretation of the discussion from the perspective of the… Continue reading Political and security implications of Chinese investment in Slovakia
Foreign investments are often being portrayed as an economic panacea. Nevertheless, what can be done in cases in which the investor’s interests are not honest, or even worse, they present a security threat? At the time when the Chinese Midea Group bought a German manufacturer of industrial robots Kuka in the summer of 2016, many… Continue reading When investments are not in state interest
