Why are Serbia and Hungary important to Xi Jinping?

Xi Jinping visits Serbia for the second time in less than ten years.

In addition to Paris and Budapest, Belgrade is one of the Chinese president's stops on the European tour.

This is Xia's first visit to Europe in five years.

In Belgrade stands May 7th and 8th, when the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing at the Chinese Embassy is also marked.

In Beijing, the visit to Serbia was described as the additional strengthening of Serbia's <x0-strong steel friendship” between the two countries, while Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq called Xin <x2 mic> Serbia's”.

Vedran Gisic, legalist at the University of Vienna Faculty of Political Sciences, tells Radio Free Europe that China is trying, in any way possible, to find a way towards the European market and to strengthen its impact on Europe.

“Kina sees in Hungary and Serbia the two most important partners in Europe, a kind of door opening the path to a wider European market, as well as for some strategic investments”, he says.

As a candidate for membership in the European Union, Serbia is strengthening its relations with China, with which it co-operates mainly in the field of infrastructure.

Belgrade also estimates on China's political support, on issues it considers of vital national importance, such as Kosovo.

Politologist Gisic estimates that the Chinese president's visit to Serbia -- in addition to economic and trade -- sends a political message -- that Serbia has an alternative.

“... that tries to work on deepening co-operation even with actors outside the West and, in this way, is represented as a kind of autonomous player in the new geopolitical plejaade”, he says.

Vuk Vuksanovic, senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, tells Radio Free Europe that Serbia, with this visit, is also positioned alongside Russia.

Serbia is demonstrating once again that China, not Russia, is currently its most important partner in the East, especially now when Russian-Serbian ties are under constant scrutiny because of Ukraine”, Vuksanovic says.

Serbia has been repeatedly invited by Brussels and Washington to join Western sanctions against Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine.

Authorities in Belgrade say they support Ukraine's territorial integrity, but refuse to impose sanctions on Russia.

What do they say in Beijing and Belgrade?

Serbia is China's first comprehensive strategic partner in Central and Eastern Europe, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.

“Kina sees this visit as an opportunity to further strengthen our steel friendship, deepen mutual political confidence and enhance practical co-operation”, Linn said.

Speaking at a press conference on April 29th, Linn said the two countries strongly support each other's basic interests and that Xi and Vuciq will exchange views for international and regional issues of common interest.

Serbia's president, Vuciq, said that during the Chinese president's visit, Serbia will initiate accelerated technological development projects in areas where there is no sufficient knowledge.

Vuciq mentioned robotics and satellite and flying machines technology.

“It is a way to keep pace with the world and further develop our best relations”, Vuciq said during a speech on April 29th.

A day later, the Government of Serbia announced it has approved the necessary actions to improve co-operation with China in several areas of education, science, innovation and technological development.

Anniversary of the Chinese Embassy Bombing

The Chinese president's visit to Serbia coincides with the anniversary of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by NATO.

On May 7, 1999, five bombs from American aircraft hit the Chinese Embassy, which was then engulfed by flames.

Three people were killed, including two Chinese journalists, and at least 20 other people were injured.

NATO and United States officials later said the bombing of the Chinese Embassy was not deliberate.

In 1999, NATO carried out a campaign of air strikes against then Yugoslavia in order to prevent Serb forces' attacks on the Albanian population in Kosovo.

Jisic says there is a rhetoric assigned to NATO's actions in Serbia, which is used to produce anti-Western and anti-American emotions.

According to him, this rhetoric alludes to some kind of competition or “conflict” between the West on one side and Russia, China and several other countries on the other.

Serbia, the Serbian president first of all, tries to sail among these poles. And then, when pressure from the West is huge, it's based on partners from East”, Gisic says.

Now, Gisic estimates, the West has become “much, much more critical of Aleksandar Vuciqi's regime than it was a few years ago”.

During his state visit to Serbia in 2016, Xi Jinping laid a wreath of flowers on the monument to the victims of the Embassy bombing.

Then, at the site of the broken Chinese Embassy, the stone was thrown for the construction of the Chinese Cultural Center, which is considered one of the largest in all of Europe.

Strengthening <x0 steel friendship”

Serbia's relations with China have been strengthened since the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) took power in Serbia 12 years ago.

During the first Chinese president's visit to Serbia in 2016, the Declaration for Strategic Partnership has been signed between Serbia and China.

Seven years later, the Free Trade Agreement was signed, which Serbian officials have described as an event with the historical “” for Serbia.

Billions of Chinese dollars are already arriving in Serbia.

Interior and Foreign Trade Minister in Serbia Government Tomislav Momirovic said on April 30th that China is one of the biggest investors in Serbia, after investing $5.5 billion in its economy in 2014-23.

Politologist Gisic says China has strategic economic interests in Serbia.

The Chinese investment version is high compared to all other countries in the region and this is, of course, something China is interested in”, he says.

Construction is also the Belgrade-Budapest fast railway, which is part of the Chinese strategic project “Bresey and” Street.

China has launched the “Bresey project and the” Road in 2013, aimed at developing new trade routes and markets for Chinese exports.

However, Serbia's borrowing from China is on the rise, too.

Most of the loans have been taken for infrastructure projects, roads, bridges and railways, mainly from the Chinese EXIM Bank (Export Import Bank of China).

This bank, according to data from the Ministry of Finance Public Debt Administration in Serbia, is among Serbia's five largest creditors.

National Bank of Serbia data shows that Serbia's debt to China has reached its value 15 times in the past 11 years.

Agreement on Political Issues

Belgrade and Beijing agree on many political issues.

China does not recognise Kosovo's independence, which was declared in 2008, while Serbia advocates the politics of a Chinaman.

Official Belgrade accounts for China's support to the UN Security Council in connection with Kosovo's non-recognition of citizenship.

In February, Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, attracted international public attention with the declaration of the Chinese Global Television Network, that Taiwan is Chinese territory and that “belongs to China to decide what to do with it”.

Beijing treats Taiwan as a minority province, while Taiwan views itself as a sovereign state.

During his visit to China in October 2023, Vuciq said he is happy that Serbia has not joined any statements against China.

“Under the conditions of considerable pressure on Serbia, our country is the only one in Europe that has never joined statements, which would criticise or attack China on any case”, he said.

Vuksanovic from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy estimates that Serbia's main challenge is how to maintain a balance between the United States and China.

He says it seems that authorities in Serbia have found a formula under which Washington is their dominant partner in security and potentially about Kosovo.

“They consider they can maintain a balance with China as long as it is exclusively reduced to economic co-operation and high diplomatic exchange, and there is no deeper provocative movement towards Washington”, Vuksanovic says.

Earlier, the Serbian government has attracted the attention of Washington and Brussels, as it has bought danger and missile defence systems from China, as well as thousands of facial recognition surveillance systems from the Chinese company Huawei. /REL