Written by Dr Tamás Matura
Playing a balancing act between the East and the West, Orbán hopes to boost his international political clout and the economic development of Hungary by cosying up to other illiberal world leaders such as China’s Xi Jinping.
Read MoreWritten by Mathieu Droin
The brewing Indo-Pacific architecture is inherently “flexilateral” due to the breadth of factors and the rapidly changing stakes that determine its many actors’ positions.
Read MoreWritten by Dr Jeremy Garlick
The BRI’s unfulfilled potential in the region leaves the connectivity and cooperation aims of the initiative largely on the shelf, with the main successes for China located in Western Balkan countries that are not EU members.
Read More9DASHLINE asked a select group of experts to assess Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries’ relations with China and how they expect them to evolve in 2023.
Read MoreWritten by Bashir Abbas
India’s abstentions during the present Ukraine crisis are occurring during the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose right-wing credentials are well established. The 2014 vote on Crimea occurred during the rule of its predecessor — the United Progressive Alliance, a centrist party with the Congress at its helm.
Read MoreWritten by Jana C. von Dessien
The Western strategy has reached its limits: switching between realpolitik and moral superiority at one’s own discretion no longer comes without massive costs.
Read More2021 was the year of Chinese ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy and what observers have characterised as the ‘bullying’ of countries unwilling to toe Beijing’s many lines. While this has led to souring ties between China and others within its immediate neighbourhood, Europe too found itself on the wrong side of Beijing’s new muscular diplomacy.
Read MoreIn Brief with Sorin Ionita
We should start by denying Beijing the propaganda opportunities it craves so much, like the 2022 Olympic games, and press our own companies to adopt a less cynical line when they do business in China — or else leave the place.
Read MoreWritten by Tamás Matura
China has indeed made mistakes in its courtship of the region in the past decade. Together with CEE governments, it raised expectations it could not fulfil and followed a top-down approach targeting the elites of CEE societies instead of winning the hearts and minds of the people.
Read MoreWritten by Michael Trinkwalder
However, if the EU truly wishes to make its Eastern members commit to a common strategy, its Western members will also have to give up on their jealously guarded ‘special relationships’ with China. A strategy devised between Paris and Berlin alone might be more ambitious, but it would do little good if it left half of the Union out in the cold.
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