When Chinese leader Xi Jinping last visited Europe's former communist east in 2016, the Czech Republic's president hosted him for a three-day state visit with flags and offered his country as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for Chinese investment.
That ship has since sunk, torpedoed by China's support for Russia in the war in Ukraine and bitter disappointment over projects that never materialized. Also, many of the high hopes that arose throughout Eastern and Central Europe for an abundance of Chinese money have capsized.
So when Xi returns to the region this week after a visit to France, he will travel to Serbia and Hungary, two countries whose long-serving authoritarian leaders continue to provide refuge for China in increasingly turbulent political and economic waters.
“The Czechs, the Poles and almost everyone else are very angry with China because of the war,” said Tamas Matura, a foreign relations scholar at Budapest's Corvinus University. “But in Hungary that is not a problem, at least not for the government” of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Mr. Matura said.
Nor is China's Kremlin-friendly stance on the war in Ukraine a problem for President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia, who like Mr. Orban has maintained warm relations with Russia and China while bringing in billions of dollars in Chinese investment.
In an interview this week with Chinese state television, Mr. Vucic gave a taste of the flattery that will dominate Mr. Xi's visit: “There are thousands of things we can and should learn from our Chinese friends,” the Serbian president said.
“Taiwan is China – period,” he added.
Milos Zeman, the Czech president who welcomed Xi in 2016, was replaced last year by a former senior NATO general, Petr Pavel. Mr Pavel has angered the Chinese government by talking to the president of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory, and say in an interview that China “is not a friendly country.” Chinese investment in the Czech Republic has dropped to a trickle.
Meanwhile, Chinese money has flowed into Hungary and Serbia, strengthening close ties underpinned by a shared wariness of the United States.
China's main infrastructure project in the region, a high-speed rail line between Belgrade and Budapest, has been delayed by regulations and other problems. Of the roughly 320 kilometers of planned railway line, only about 90 kilometers are still in use after five years of work — a slow pace for a project that Beijing sees as a key part of the Belt and Road infrastructure program, Mr. Xi's favored initiative in the field of foreign policy.
But promised Chinese investments in other projects have flown forward. a total of almost 20 billion dollars in Serbiaaccording to the Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, and almost as much in total in Hungary, including loans whose terms are secret.
Ivana Karaskova, a Czech researcher at the Association for International Affairs, an independent research group in Prague, said Hungary and Serbia are looking to China “not only for economic gains, but also to demonstrate to their domestic voters that they are pursuing independent policies.” .” That shows the European Union and the United States that “they are not the only game in town,” Ms. Karaskova said.
China, she added, “understands this dynamic” and Mr Xi will use it to try to reverse a stable situation deterioration of opinion about China in Europe, both among ordinary citizens and in institutions such as the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union.
Iflast year's survey among Eastern and Central European countries from Globsec, a research group in Slovakia, found that “negative perceptions of Beijing have soared,” especially in the Baltic states and the Czech Republic. Even in Hungary, only 26 percent of respondents had a positive view of Mr Xi, compared to 39 percent with a negative view. The rest said they hadn't figured it out yet.
But Hungary under Mr Orban, regardless of what the public thinks, has become a “safe political space” for Beijing, Mr Matura said, and can be counted on to try to challenge the European Union's policy towards China mitigate and protect the country from its consequences. from the war in Ukraine.
The convergence of economic and geopolitical interests is particularly pronounced in Serbia, which aspires to join the European Union but has no objection to joining the bloc by imposing sanctions on Russia and blocking the EU's efforts to find a solution for Kosovo has been frustrating. Kosovo, a former Serbian territory, has declared itself an independent state after a NATO bombing campaign, a status that Serbia, backed by Russia and China, has refused to accept.
Mr Xi arrives in Serbia from France on Tuesday – the 25th anniversary of a mistaken attack by NATO warplanes on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the 1999 bombings. Three Chinese journalists were killed.
That incident, which many in China believe was not an accident, created a “strong emotional bond between Serbs and Chinese,” said Aleksandar Mitic of the Institute of International Politics and Economics in Belgrade.
As part of a series of government-sanctioned events in Belgrade ahead of Mr Xi's visit, Serbian communists on Monday unfurled banners reading “Welcome President” and “Kosovo is Serbia – Taiwan is China” outside the Chinese Cultural Center in Belgrade , built on the site of the bombed embassy. They demanded that the street outside the center be renamed 'Chinese Victims of NATO Aggression Street'.
Hungary has also expressed outrage at what it sees as intimidation by Washington and Brussels, despite its membership of NATO and the European Union, from which it has received billions of euros in aid.
However, Mr Orban's main interest in China is money and he hopes to turn Hungary into an electric vehicle manufacturing center with the help of Chinese investors. batteries and other new technologies.
In the past two years alone, China has pledged to invest more than $10 billion in Hungary, most of it in ventures related to electric vehicles – at a time when the European Union was concerned about China's growing dominance in the sector, is investigating whether Chinese EV manufacturers are being unfairly subsidized and should be punished with high tariffs.
These assembly lines will take years to build, but in the long run they will help protect Chinese EV manufacturers from future attempts by the European Union to prevent China from dominating the market through tariffs.
Tariffs imposed on imported Chinese electric cars would not apply to cars assembled in Hungary, which can ship goods across the EU duty-free, although they could affect parts imported from China to Hungarian factories.
Unlike most of Europe, where governments change frequently – a democratic chaos that can disrupt Chinese investment plans based on close ties to a particular leader – Mr Orban and Mr Vucic have both been in power for more than a decade and they show no sign of change. go somewhere.
“The Chinese are comfortable in Hungary,” Mr Matura said. “The public may not love China, but the government does.”
By visiting Hungary and Serbia, analysts say, Mr. Xi wants to show that while China may be a less influential player in Eastern and Central Europe, it is not out yet. And, they say, it signals that he has not given up on the Chinese diplomatic initiative known as 16+1, a grouping of China and formerly communist European countries built around the flagship of Xi's Belt and Road program.
Three Baltic states are outraged by the war in Ukraine and have formally resigned from the grouping, which dates back to 2012 and has been a cornerstone of Chinese diplomacy in Europe during Xi's rule. Others, such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania, technically remain members but have largely withdrawn.
“The big debate among experts in the region now is whether 16+1 is dead or just a zombie,” Mr Matura said.