In the Great Hall of the People, which was decorated with flowers and flags of the two countries, Chinese President Xi Jinping met his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, who came to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. The warmth of the meeting held on the fifth of last February was a translation of friendship The growing relationship between China and Serbia, and a recent confirmation of the ever-increasing confidence that the two countries enjoy, and the interests of which are expanding day by day.
During the visit, Vucic did not hesitate to express his conviction more than ever in the importance of maintaining close relations with China, and supporting it in its nationalist positions, especially the issue of East Turkestan, as many voices in the European Union are currently criticizing the severe authoritarian tendencies in the rule of that region. Excluding others, and the grave violations of their human rights to which its Uyghur Muslim residents are subjected.
In fact, Serbian-Chinese relations are moving towards more interdependence, amid Western fears about the goals of intensive investment by Beijing in the most important Balkan country, and the most prominent heir to the state of Yugoslavia after its disintegration in the 1990s, especially with the long history of tension between Belgrade and the West due to the latter’s support for Bosniak Muslims and Croats. against the Serbs during the Balkan conflict nearly three decades ago.
Beijing seems to be seeking to become Serbia's economic and political center in its region, and to be a base for the Chinese economic presence in the Balkans.
This comes in conjunction with Serbia's desire to search for an alternative to the economically and politically eroding Russian role, despite its military expansion in Ukraine. Hence, it seems that the choice fell on China to form a balancing policy between European ties and the Chinese presence in order to achieve Belgrade's interests.
steel friendship
During the 1990s, Western criticism of China and Serbia pushed the two countries toward convergence in order to confront the West supporting the independence of the autonomous regions under their control (such as Hong Kong and Kosovo), as well as to confront human rights pressures in their dealings with ethnic and religious minorities.
During the Kosovo crisis, Beijing did not hesitate to support the regime of Serbian President, convicted of war crimes, "Slobodan Milosevic," and diplomatically opposed NATO's bombing of Kosovo in 1999, considering that there was no legal basis for bombing Serbian military targets.
By 2000, China continued to side with the Serbs, tired of isolation and international sanctions, providing funds to prevent the country's financial collapse, and the Chinese media promoted Milosevic's image as an opponent of Western imperialism.
Over the past two decades, the two countries have moved towards deepening bilateral relations after they announced their strategic partnership in 2009 and signed an agreement on economic and technological cooperation and infrastructure development, and then Chinese investments have flowed in heavy industries such as steel and copper, as well as in power plants, where China is currently building its workers and companies Roads, factories and railways the length and breadth of Serbia.
Figures indicate that Chinese investments in Serbia between 2005-2019 amounted to about 10 billion dollars, as Beijing bought the only steel plant in Serbia in 2016, and its companies ran a smelter and a copper mine in the east of the country, and a tire factory in the north.
By late 2021, Chinese investment exceeded 2 billion euros, while Chinese infrastructure loans exceeded 8 billion euros, according to public data.
Hand in hand, China's economic investment in Serbia went hand in hand with political and diplomatic support, as Serbia continued to support China's position on Taiwan and the territories in the South China Sea, just as Beijing supported Belgrade's refusal to recognize Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. Members of NATO remain the largest financial donors to the Serbian armed forces, Belgrade focused on military and security cooperation with Beijing, signed a contract to purchase and assemble several Chinese drones, and deployed the Chinese surveillance infrastructure “Safe City” in the capital, Belgrade, where it distributed 1,000 cameras in 800 locations, mostly in the capital, for facial recognition.
The two countries exchanged students, new staff, and scholarships, as well as Chinese financial support for the education sector, and while Serbia's state-owned media made great efforts to promote China's image as a friend and reliable partner, there were parallel efforts by the Chinese-backed media.
Now, with Serbia entering the elections, cooperation with China is present as an ideal tool in electoral propaganda for Serbian leaders who present Chinese projects and investments as means to support the economy suffering from high unemployment and outdated infrastructure and industrialization.
Moreover, Serbia is a “godsend” for China, as it is a non-EU country, thus not subject to the strict rules of the European bloc, and at the same time has extensive trade agreements with Brussels, and thanks to its location it is linked to European markets in the region It is located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia.
Chinese investments... under the radar
Billboard for Chinese President Xi Jinping in Belgrade, Serbia, text on the billboard reads "Thank you, Brother Xi"
Last November, workers of the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) were busy building a 360-kilometre sewage network in the center of the Serbian city of Kragujevac.
The scene was ordinary for the Serb population, as they often saw the Chinese building their infrastructure in a country where government statistics show that more than a third of its households do not have access to sewage and water management systems.
However, the exchange network, which is part of a joint venture called Clean Serbia, which was launched in 2021 with a budget of $3.6 billion, represented to the opponents a new case in the record of corruption related to China's activities in their country, as the Chinese company obtained it without bidding.
This project and what was raised about it is a microcosm of how Belgrade deals with Chinese entities, according to the opposition and Western countries that have criticized many construction deals between Serbia and China due to their lack of transparency. “Chinese companies are protected like polar bears under a bilateral agreement between the two governments,” she says. Opposition politician Marinica Tepic has been branded a "traitor" in Serbian newspapers and has received death threats for her criticism of Chinese projects.
The sources indicate that China's commercial activities have caused an increase in loopholes in Serbian law, and created exceptions for infrastructure investments that mostly come from Chinese companies or financed by Chinese state loans, in contrast to the new Serbian laws and procedures that made it easier to make investments under the radar of the 2019 law. to public procurement, which weakened regulations governing competition, access to information, and environmental protection.
Opposition politician Marinica Tepic
To make matters more clear, another example can be cited related to the establishment by China several months ago of a station for a high-speed train line in the country. China ignored the demands for the employment of Serbian workers in their country, and entrusted most of the tasks in the project to Chinese workers.
Some in Serbia point to what is more dangerous than that, as a number of Chinese economic projects are very harmful to the environment, as the country’s political elite, through its agreements with China, sacrifice environmental safety and public health under the pretext of economic growth that achieves them staying in power in a country that owns one The highest pollution-related death rates in Europe.
Environmental scientists have warned that coal-fired plants operated by Chinese companies in Serbia do not meet international standards for greenhouse gas emissions.
Opponents have come out to protest recently against the construction of a steel factory in one of the cities.
However, given the huge quantitative and qualitative disparity between the Chinese economy and its Serbian counterpart, the effectiveness of the bilateral partnership between the two countries remains questionable, while Serbian exports to China increased by the middle of 2021 fifteen times in the past five years to reach 377 million dollars, China represents less than 2 % of Serbian export earnings, while representing 43% of the entire Serbian national deficit.
Scapegoat
The spectacle of raising Russian flags and pictures of Putin among the thousands of demonstrators who spread out in the center of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, was a different sight from the protests across Europe denouncing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But this is not surprising in a country where Moscow enjoys strong support among a significant segment of the population, and pro-Putin propaganda has not ceased to fuel the minds of its residents for years, as two-thirds of Serbs hold a "very positive" view of Putin, according to a poll published last year.
Add to this, of course, the strong ties between Serbia and Moscow, which were cemented in the 1990s when Yugoslavia disintegrated.
However, the Serbian president was unable to take a firm position on the Russian war on Ukraine, as the official position of the European Union candidate country was limited to declaring support for Ukraine's territorial integrity while rejecting calls to adhere to the European Union line regarding sanctions against Russia, and he did not hesitate to invoke a rejection Russia imposed such measures on Serbia during the Balkan wars of the 1990s due to Belgrade's suppression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, and thus the need to return the favor to Moscow by refusing to apply similar sanctions.
Despite the close relationship between the two countries, as Serbia has hosted a Russian military presence since 2016 under the guise of a "humanitarian center", and the Russian Defense Ministry has a liaison office in Serbia, the partnership with Russia in recent years has seemed tiring for the Serbs, and this is not limited to being the most hostile country. This is due to the fact that the Serbs view their partnership with Russia now as opportunistic, in which Moscow uses Belgrade as a means of pressure on the West without Belgrade achieving tangible political and economic advantages, unlike the case In the time of the Soviet Union, when Yugoslavia, under the leadership of "Joseph Tito", committed itself to non-alignment, but succeeded in crystallizing a good industrial and military relationship with Moscow, which benefited from it in the modernization of the country.
As a result of their belief that they are just one of the many cards in the hands of the Russians to blackmail Europe, and that they are no longer an important partner for Moscow, similar to the Cold War, the Serbs do not rule out at any time that the Russians will dispense with them as part of a deal with the West.
These fears do not stem from a vacuum, but rather there are signs that the Serbs themselves have touched. In 2020, when Serbia faced violent anti-lockdown protests (due to the Covid-19 virus), pro-government media accused pro-Russian forces of instigating the protests.
In contrast, China has increased its presence as one of the most attractive countries to establish a partnership with a non-Western pole for Serbia, to ensure that Moscow does not monopolize this seat.
Despite the strong relations between China and Russia, Belgrade's cooperation with China can weaken Russian influence in Serbia in the long run.
Belgrade halted arms purchases from Moscow in December 2019 to avoid the possibility of US financial sanctions, and was quickly tempted by China's military superiority to fill the void, so military relations with Beijing are increasing for Belgrade at the expense of relations with Moscow. 2019 by the Serbian Ministry of Defense that from 2008-2018 the United States was the largest contributor of military aid to Serbia, followed by China, Norway, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
China, unlike Russia, presents a more positive view of political-diplomatic issues of interest to Serbs. Beijing does not prevent the resolution of the Kosovo conflict or deliberately create other obstacles to Serbia's relations with the European Union and the United States such as Moscow. On the contrary, Moscow benefits from the fact that the Balkans A cornerstone in trade and economic relations with Europe and the markets surrounding it, such as the eastern Mediterranean and Turkey, and thus it complements the option of economic integration with the European Union, without losing political support in issues related to Serbia, and without the usual blatant interference from Moscow in the affairs of its allies.
Also, Beijing is a quick and easy source of cash as the Serbs know well, which saved the old debt-laden industrial plants.
For example, between 2010-2019, China invested $1.9 billion in Serbia, and Chinese infrastructure loans amounted to more than €7 billion.
With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the Serbian need to continue the path toward strengthening the relationship with China, a major non-Western partner of Serbia, increased, as Serbian-Chinese relations seemed free from the concerns that the war with the West created for the Russian allies.
Despite the foregoing, Serbian leaders will not be able to completely dispense with Moscow. Any major separation from Moscow may lead to unrest ahead of the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, as the Serbian leadership realizes the possibility that further disengagement from Russia will anger a large part of the pro-Russian electorate. In Serbia, in addition to the possibility of the Russians intervening through their allies to overturn the political equation, as they did in many countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
Serbia is still dependent on Russian gas as well. In November 2021, Belgrade and Moscow reached an agreement on importing Russian gas. Belgrade also needs Russian support at the United Nations in the Kosovo conflict, just as it needs Chinese diplomatic support.
It is more likely, then, that Belgrade will retain what remains of the Russian role for as long as it needs it, but it is increasingly looking to China to give it the economic and political advantages that Moscow can no longer afford.
In light of the harsh sanctions on Russia, Belgrade realizes that it needs another ally outside the West more than ever to preserve its political cards, as well as its economic stability and need for development, while breaking the traditional bilateralism between a West that ignores Serbian interests and Russia, which has troubled relations internationally.