By Newsteam - GEOPoliticalMatters.com
City of London Newsroom (Remote)
Google Indexed at 06:28 on 180620
China has not embedded itself in the Western Balkans as much as it might have done – and may even be looking back on the 2010s as a wasted decade.
The European Council on Foreign Relations has published an interesting article examining China´s involvement in the Balkans. It point out that China’s activities in recent years have shown that it is laying the groundwork for a long-term, multi-faceted, and ever-deeper presence in the Western Balkans. Its bilateral interactions with states in the region have been intensifying, and are gradually – from an admittedly low base – expanding beyond questions of infrastructure and energy and into academia, culture, civil society and even Geopolitics.
It looks at a series of shifts in the wider context of US and European relations with China; the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic; and the dynamics of renewed Geopolitical competition between Western and non-Western actors in the region are all starting to impact on Beijing’s plan, approach, and odds of success. China is now facing five particular mounting challenges to its ambitions for the Western Balkans. Click Here to Read the Full Article/...
About the European Council on Foreign Relations
The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) is an award-winning international think-tank that aims to conduct cutting-edge independent research on European foreign and security policy and to provide a safe meeting space for decision-makers, activists and influencers to share ideas. They build coalitions for change at the European level and promote informed debate about Europe’s role in the world. In 2007, ECFRs founders set about creating a pan-European institution that could combine establishment credibility with intellectual insurgency.
Today, ECFR remains uniquely placed to continue providing a pan-European perspective on some of the biggest strategic challenges and choices Europeans need to confront, with a network of offices in seven European capitals, over 60 staff from more than 25 different countries and a team of associated researchers in the EU member states. Click here to download ECFRs brochure.
