Abstract
Europeanising the Western Balkans is exceptionally intricate in times of crisis. China’s growing engagement in the region has made it more complicated. The European Union (EU) would be in a better position if it learns to accommodate other external actors in the area, shifting its focus from a parochial partnership to a pragmatic one. Irrespective of the rhetorical systemic rivalry, China has brought and will continuously bring funding and expertise to the Western Balkan countries. After all, chronic underdevelopment, in no small part, has kept them away from gaining EU membership. Therefore, even though the realist idiom warns that two tigers cannot coexist in one mountain, the Western Balkans can and should accommodate more external actors if regional stakeholders, such as the EU and China, can take the region’s development seriously. Specifically, the article examines the convergence of EU-China interests in land transport infrastructure development in the Western Balkans.
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Notes
The EU and China have different understandings of Western Balkans. In the EU, it is interchangeable with the WB6, including Kosovo, whereas China excludes Kosovo. Meanwhile, in different regional schemes, the EU regards the WB countries as candidate member states; they are but one part of Central and Eastern Europe, ranging from Tallin to Tirana in China’s 17 + 1 Initiative (three Baltic states have decided to opt out).
Europeanisation refers to the general act and process of spreading EU norms (Borzel and Risse 2012).
Such demarcation is not neat. Therefore, in depicting the WB as a conflict zone, the author does not imply that there were no traces of economic activities; likewise, even though China now regards the WB as an economic corridor, the region still abounds in conflicts.
In the fourth session of the Ninth National People’s Congress held in 2001, the strategy was written into the 10th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development.
The data only cover BiH, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro; Croatia gained EU membership in 2013.
The concessional factor, however, did not automatically lead to real-world cooperation.
Chinese investors also engaged in oil exploration (Patos-Marinze and Kucova), power plants (Stanari), steel plants (Smederevo, Sabac, and Kucevo), mining (RTB Bor), and car parts factories (Obrenovac, Zrenjanin).
Among other prominent figures, Sigmar Gabriel, the former German Foreign Minister, said in 2017, “If we do not succeed for example in developing a single strategy towards China, then China will succeed in dividing Europe” (Gabriel quoted in Poggetti 2017). Likewise, Frankopan (2018) asserts that China’s engagement in the WB aims to divide and rule.
Pan’s (2012) edited volume has examined the complex EU-China relations in detail.
Notwithstanding the popularity of the term Chinese model in the West, it has been seldom used in Chinese official rhetoric, at least not explicitly.
Adding to this urgency, the global pandemic plunged 300,000 people into poverty in Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia (World Bank 2020).
Unfortunately, when infrastructure projects are politicised for party interests or personal gains, they will degenerate into scandals. The corruption case in North Macedonia is a case in point. Although these can be unreflectively attributed to China’s engagement since most Chinese contractors are state-owned, it is biased. In the official investment guidance made to specific countries, Beijing has explicitly warned Chinese companies to stay away from corruption. In an investment guidance, the Ministry of Commerce of Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (2021, p. 61) warns Chinese stakeholders that “[c]orruption and bribery in Serbia will not only be punished by law but also affect corporate credibility and reputation”.
Route 2a is a highway corridor designed to connect Gradiska (Croatia border) with Lasva-Travnik.
Notably, the document previously available (https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/oem_wb6_finalreport.pdf) is gone.
Route 2 is a railway corridor designed to connect Podgorica with Durres/Tirana.
Abbreviations
- BRI:
-
Belt and Road Initiative
- CEF:
-
Connecting Europe Facility
- EU:
-
European Union
- FDI:
-
Foreign direct investment
- TEN-T:
-
Trans-European Transport Network
- WB:
-
Western Balkan
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Hou, P. Two tigers in one mountain: Europeanising the Western Balkans amid China’s engagement. Asia Eur J (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-024-00695-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-024-00695-z