Hungary, Serbia, North Macedonia and Greece each have their own reasons for accepting Chinese investments, Miskovic said. For Serbia, it was important to have another permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, besides Russia, on its side to block further negative developments in Kosovo.
The Western Balkans have always been Europe’s “powder keg” and although today, the context does not appear of what might seem like direct involvement in armed conflict, the situation clearly catches the eye. Not for ideological campaigns, but for long-term economic strategies and political influence, where a distant actor, sometimes silent and sometimes vocal, is throwing a silk curtain over the Region and making a clear division: Far East, or West? Four countries, starting from Hungary in the north, Serbia, North Macedonia and Greece, are creating the plateau of Chinese influence through strong investments, in exchange for political support and the rapprochement of states.
Outside this curtain, two pro-Western countries appear, which neither factually, nor ideologically, have accepted investments from Beijing: Albania and Kosovo.
In a recent communication that Albanian Post had with Pentagon officials, they have clearly expressed their support for cooperation between the countries of the Region in terms of defense, referring in more depth to the initiative of Albania, Croatia and Kosovo for defense and armament. But, beyond this, the “game” is becoming stronger for the “control” of influence in other countries of the Region. More light has been shed on this by journalist Ken Moriyasi, a correspondent for the world’s largest economic newspaper, Nikkei Asia, who, through an extensive article, reflects on how this “silk curtain” is being created, when Washington’s attention is focused on Ukraine and also on the Middle East. Above all, the concerns of Serbia’s great rapprochement with China and Beijing’s increased presence in the Balkans.
MORIYASI’S ARTICLE EXPLAINS AS FOLLOWS:
Southeast of the “Iron Curtain” famously described by Winston Churchill in 1946, a new group of nations friendly to China is forming a north-south line running through the heart of Eurasia. While this “Silk Curtain” – which stretches from Hungary in the north to Greece in the south – does not represent an ideological divide, it offers China strategic and economic access to a Region bordering Western Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Most notable are the growing ties between China and Serbia, the largest economy in the Western Balkans. Earlier last month, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić was the first foreign leader to confirm that he would attend China’s military parade on September 3 to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Also last month, China and Serbia conducted joint special forces drills in Hebei province, their first joint military exercise. Jie Gao, an analyst who studies the People’s Liberation Army and co-author of the PLA Watch newsletter, said China has sold FK-3 air defense systems and CH-series drones to Belgrade, making Serbia “the first European country to integrate these platforms.”
Economic ties are also growing. China-Serbia trade grew by 22.8% in 2024 to $7.5 billion, according to the Serbian Statistical Office. China is now Serbia’s third-largest trading partner, after Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2020, China ranked 19th.
“China has replaced Russia as Serbia’s main partner outside the Western world,” Vuk Vuksanovic, a senior fellow at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, told Nikkei Asia. “The Serbian leadership understands that China is a rising superpower with a capacity that Russia — despite its resources, despite its status as a great power — simply does not have.” For China, Serbia is one piece of a larger puzzle, according to Vuksanovic. “If you connect the dots, consider where Chinese investments are in Southeast Europe, and you see that four countries are important,” he said, pointing to Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary. “These four countries are part of a single whole.” Damjan Krnjevic Miskovic, who was part of the Serbian Foreign Ministry team that negotiated a strategic partnership with China in 2009, said, “the logic for us was very simple. China was a country that had never done us any harm.”
China, whose embassy in Belgrade was bombed by NATO forces in 1999, did not recognize Kosovo as an independent state. This was an integral part of Serbia’s motivation to engage with China “in a much more active way,” Miskovic recalled.
Hungary, Serbia, North Macedonia and Greece each have their own reasons for accepting Chinese investment, Miskovic said. For Serbia, it was important to have another permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, besides Russia, on its side to block further negative developments in Kosovo. In Greece, the Chinese state-owned shipping company Cosco owns the Port of Piraeus, Athens’ main seaport. After leasing a berth at the port in 2009, Cosco took a majority stake in 2016. Chinese investment in Piraeus began during the Greek sovereign debt crisis of 2009, “when the European Union was forcing the Greeks to adopt very harsh economic measures,” Miskovic said. “You could say that China is taking advantage of unfortunate economic circumstances, but name me a great power that is not doing that.”
During a state visit early last month, Chinese Premier Li Qiang told his Greek counterparts that China was ready to cooperate on clean energy and artificial intelligence, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Hungary is a member of the EU and NATO, but because of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s controversial policies and statements, including his more friendly stance toward Russia, the country is often at odds with other allies. North Macedonia has “even cheaper labor than Serbia, but it’s very difficult for the country to attract foreign direct investment. So the Chinese are coming in,” Miskovic said. Donatienne Ruy, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that while the Trump administration is currently preoccupied with other priorities, during the first Trump administration, especially by then-presidential envoy for Serbia-Kosovo negotiations Richard Grenell, there was a diplomatic effort to seek peace in the Region. “It was quite surprising because there hasn’t been a U.S. administration that has focused so much on this issue for a long time,” she said. “It was important for an American president to focus his attention on this.”
Last summer, before the presidential election, Grenell told Serbian-Americans during the Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that if Trump returned to the White House, he would make the Western Balkans a priority.
“Your future is with us, not with Russia or China. Your future is with America… America has a responsibility to continue to pull Serbia back,” he said. So far in Trump’s second administration, that hasn’t happened. But CSIS’s Ruy said it wasn’t impossible, as the administration has focused on issues that aren’t the subject of public attention, such as the recent mediation between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
