Great power tension between the U.S. and China is rising in the Balkans, according to a new analysis asserting that Beijing increasingly views the region as a strategic doorway for exerting geopolitical influence throughout the European Union.
“Beijing hopes to use the Balkans as a gateway to the EU through which its influence, trade, and investment in the union can flow,” states the “Strategic Update” circulated this week by LSE IDEAS, a think tank at the London School of Economics.
China’s goal is to “gain an advantage in its larger, global competition with Washington,” according to author Ivan Lidarev, a visiting scholar with the think tank.
“From the standpoint of the China-U.S. competition the Balkans are a Chinese gate to Europe,” Mr. Lidarev wrote in the analysis that first appeared on the online publishing platform Medium.
“Beijing wants to open this gate, while the U.S. wants to shut it,” he wrote.
The assessment comes amid warnings from Balkan diplomats over similarly rising U.S.-Russia tensions in the region. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Ambassador to the United Nations Zlatko Lagumdzija told The Washington Times in an interview in May that Washington should be paying closer attention to Russian meddling in the Balkans.
Mr. Lagumdzija warned at the time that Russian President Vladimir Putin may seek to foment a conflict in the region to distract the West from Russia’s war in Ukraine. He also asserted that Russia’s messy war in Ukraine presents a chance for the U.S. and the EU to seize regional influence lost to Russia, China and others in recent years.
The more recent analysis by Mr. Lidarev at LSE IDEAS focused on China’s role, asserting that the interplay between Beijing’s expanding influence in the Balkans and U.S. pushback against it is impacting strategic dynamics in the region.
Mr. Lidarev pointed to Serbia as “China’s key regional partner,” noting investment by Chinese companies in a range of projects in Serbia, including the Smederevo Steel Mill, the copper mining complex RTB Bor.
There is also Chinese investment in “Southeast Europe’s energy sector,” Mr. Lidarev wrote, noting that a Chinese loan financed the modernization of Serbia’s Kostolac coal power plant. The Stanari coal plant in Bosnia and Herzegovina, meanwhile, was “financed by a 350-million-euro loan from China Development Bank and constructed by China’s Dongfang Electric Corporation,” he wrote.
China’s growing relations with several Balkan nations have prompted the U.S. to reengage in the region, Mr. Lidarev wrote, arguing that Washington is clearly the preeminent power, buttressed by NATO’s overwhelming presence in Southeastern Europe and strong bilateral relations with most Balkan states.
“Washington has succeeded in partly reducing Beijing’s influence but has not eliminated it,” Mr. Lidarev wrote, adding that most Balkan nations view the U.S.-China competition as a strategic opportunity and “have responded by aligning themselves with the U.S. and partially distancing themselves from China, in order to advance their own interests.”
“Serbia has been the major exception, as it has tried to use China to gain some diplomatic leeway and balance the U.S. and Europe,” he wrote.
How the regional competition between Washington and Beijing impactions wider EU relations with China remains to be seen.
Mr. Lidarev argued that for the Balkans, the competition could bring “economic development and faster integration with the EU,” while also finding Balkan nations stuck in a “New Cold War” between the U.S. and China.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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