Hungary, Poland, Serbia: China’s backdoors to Europe
['China', 'Chinese', 'Beijing', 'country', 'investment']
China benefits from divisions that prevent the EU from forming a unified front against it. That is why relations with EU members Hungary and Poland, as well as with the Western Balkans and Serbia in particular, are getting stronger, writes Antonia Colibasanu.
Hungary, Poland, Serbia: China’s backdoors to Europe
In these places, China sees an opportunity to expand a growing wedge and strengthen its foothold in Europe. Under China's flagship Belt and Road Initiative, the 17+1 format was designed as a way for Beijing to build economic ties to Central and Eastern Europe through investments and promises of better access to the Chinese market. Earlier this month, Budapest awarded two Chinese firms - China Civil Engineering and China Railway 11th Bureau - contracts to complete upgrades on a railway connecting Hungary to Serbia - just the latest Hungarian deal for Chinese financing. Hungary is an important ally to China because of its willingness to defy Brussels on a number of fronts. Hungary has a long history of balancing between powers - most notably the West and Russia, but increasingly also China. Poland is another country with which China is developing closer ties. In the past, Poland has been wary of getting too close to China because of its strategic relationship with the United States, but since the start of this year, its relations with Beijing have improved.