Belgrade and Beijing are getting closer

Mutual visits and new messages about intensifying cooperation with China will arrive on September 9 from Belgrade.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić thanked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping because he "raised the relations between the two countries to a strategic level".
He discussed "many aspects of the partnership" in Belgrade with Lin Wu, one of the secretaries of the Communist Party of China.
Vu also met with other Serbian officials, and with Prime Minister Miloš Vučević, he toured the works on the construction of the highway in the north of the country, which is being carried out by a Chinese company.
On the same day, the Minister of Police Ivica Dacic said from the security forum in China that Serbia "in conditions of world instability has chosen to further strengthen cooperation with a proven friend - China".
"This is not surprising, given the leniency the European Union has shown towards Serbia's tendency to sit on more than one chair," Majda Ruge from the non-governmental European Council for Foreign Affairs told Radio Free Europe (RSE).
Because of its support for China and business with that country, Serbia has repeatedly been the target of criticism from the United States and the European Union, which it aspires to become a member of.
However, this did not affect the further development of relations between Belgrade and Beijing, which agree on key political issues for both countries.
China does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, while Serbia advocates the policy of one China.

'Proven Friends'
On September 9, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Ivica Dacic announced his support for China in "assuming the role of one of the world leaders in the field of security".
Dacic said at the Forum on Public Security in the Chinese city of Lianjungang that Belgrade and Beijing are bound by a "steely friendship forged by intensive economic cooperation, trust and understanding".

On the day of the security forum, China announced new military exercises with Russia.
The Ministry of Defense of that country announced that joint exercises will be held this month in the region of the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk, off the coast of Russia.
"The exercise aims to deepen the level of strategic cooperation between the Chinese and Russian militaries and strengthen their ability to jointly counter security threats," the ministry said.
In July, the two countries already held joint exercises in the waters around the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.
The maneuvers were held in the same week that NATO leaders warned that China had "become a major enabler" in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Odnosi Kine i Zapada bez uticaja na Srbiju
Zaoštravanje odnosa između država liberalnog zapada i autoritarnih režima sa istoka nakon ruske invazije na Ukrajinu nije uticalo na dalji razvoj odnosa Srbije sa Kinom i Rusijom, ocenjuje za RSE Stefan Vladisavljev iz Beogradskog fonda za političku izuzetnost.
"Ali ako u kontinuitetu budemo imali dalje zaoštravanje odnosa, ovakva pozicija će zahtevati sve veću odrednicu prema tome šta su strateški ciljevi i orijentacija Srbije u razvijanju spoljne politike", kaže Vladisavljev.
Officials of Serbia and China confirm the "steely friendship" with a series of infrastructure and other projects that China is implementing in Serbia.
Serbia is one of the countries of the "Belt and Road" initiative - a Chinese state project initiated by President Xi Jinping, with the aim of penetrating that country to the West.

Continuation of economic cooperation
While Minister Dacic was in China, on September 9, officials in Belgrade hosted Lin Wu, Secretary of the Committee of the Communist Party of Shandong Province.
This is just one in a series of meetings of the highest officials of Serbia with representatives of the only political actor in the Chinese one-party system.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, announced that he had discussed with Vu about ongoing projects, future cooperation, as well as plans in the field of infrastructure development and modernization.

Vu, together with the Prime Minister of Serbia, Miloš Vučević, visited the works on the construction of the highway in the northern part of the country, which connects Belgrade, the industrial city of Zrenjanin and the second largest city in Serbia, Novi Sad.
This is the first project within the framework of the Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation between China and Serbia in the field of infrastructure, which is planned, designed and built by a Chinese company.

Why are Chinese projects controversial?
The opening of the car tire factory of the Chinese company Linglong was also announced, which faced suspicions about the exploitation of workers during its construction.
During a tour of the highway works, the Prime Minister of Serbia said that the tire factory is a significant investment for Serbia, and that it is expected that "the highest environmental standards and protection of employees' rights will be applied."
"The state must, regardless of our steel friendship, regardless of our common future, control the application of the highest environmental standards and, above all, the protection of the rights of employees. There, equal rules must rule for everyone," said Vucevic.
In a resolution from 2021, the European Parliament requested an investigation from Serbia due to suspicions of exploitation of workers engaged in the construction of the Linglong factory, which the company denied.
Chinese projects in Serbia caused concern among European parliamentarians due to the lack of transparency regarding their impact on the environment.
Billions of dollars of Chinese investments are arriving in Serbia, and infrastructure projects - highways, bridges, railways, energy plants - are being built with Chinese loans.
Over the years, China has become Serbia's second most important trading partner, after Germany, primarily by purchasing the Ironworks in Smederevo and the copper and gold mines in Bor.
However, at the same time, Serbia's borrowing from China is growing.
Data from the National Bank of Serbia show that Serbia's debt to China has grown 15 times over the past 11 years, to almost five billion euros.

Without a 'harsher' reaction from Brussels
"If Europe seriously considers its geostrategic orientation, it must deal more decisively with this relationship (Serbia and China) and hold Serbia accountable," assesses Majda Ruge, researcher at the international organization European Council for Foreign Affairs.
Serbia has been the target of criticism from Brussels for supporting China by voting against declarations condemning the treatment of Uyghurs in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
The Serbian government has previously attracted the attention of Washington and Brussels when it bought drones and anti-missile defense systems from China, as well as when it bought thousands of surveillance systems with facial recognition capabilities from Huawei.
A sharper reaction to the further development of relations is absent and should not be expected for several reasons, says Stefan Vladisavljev from the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence.
"The official position of the EU in relation to China is the position of risk reduction. The set of measures and decisions went in the direction of limiting negative impacts on the EU, and in no case did it refer to a complete break in relations, which would somehow give legitimacy to demands from Serbia to distance itself from China".
Another reason, he adds, is that even within the Union itself there is no unified approach to the development of relations with China.
"Countries like France and Germany, whose economy and economy depend a lot on the placement of goods on the Chinese market, but also on the Chinese goods that come to their market, are not willing to take tougher positions towards Beijing, and thus tie the hands of the European Union." said Vladisavljev.
Serbia has been strengthening its relations with China since the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of Aleksandar Vučić came to power in 2012.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Belgrade in May 2024, which was his second visit in ten years.
In 2016, China and Serbia signed a declaration on strategic partnership, and seven years later an agreement on free trade was signed.

CONCLUSION

The strengthening of relations between China and Serbia takes place continuously, both politically and economically, culturally and educationally. Regular visits of Chinese officials to Serbia, as well as Serbian officials to China, and vice versa, deepen the cooperation between the two countries at all levels. Cooperation is particularly intensive on the economic front. China is one of the largest creditors and investors in Serbia, as well as one of the largest importers to Serbia. On the other hand, Serbia mostly exports raw materials to China (usually products owned by Chinese companies), while products with a higher degree of added value are imported from China. Serbia's debt to China is continuously growing, so some analysts fear that Serbia could have the problem of falling into a debt trap towards China.

Also, the public in Serbia is not aware of the details of the contracts signed with Chinese investors and creditors, and the official authorities do not disclose the details of the contracts to the public. On several occasions, civil society organizations and the media in Serbia warned of serious violations of Serbian laws and human rights by Chinese companies. Also, Chinese companies operating in Serbia have been accused by the NGO sector, as well as by the population in the local communities where they work, of non-compliance with ecologic standards, thereby directly endangering the environment and the health of the population.

All of the above should be a clear signal to the Serbian authorities to pay more attention and take care of the contracts they conclude with the Chinese state, creditors and investors.