China announces military training with Serbia, Brussels warns Belgrade

China announces military training 9The first joint training of the Serbian and Chinese militaries is a new step for both countries in deepening military cooperation.

Serbia has become the only candidate country for EU membership to have military training with China.

The Chinese Ministry of Defence announced the “Mirovnik 2025” joint training of Chinese and Serbian special forces.

The training will take place in Hebei province in northern China in the second half of July, it was announced in Beijing on 14 July.

In recent years, Serbia has been buying weapons from China and became the first country in Europe to acquire the Chinese FK-3 anti-aircraft system.

The policy towards Beijing and Moscow has led to several warnings from Brussels. The assessment of military training with China is in this tone.

“Serbia should refrain from actions and statements that contradict the EU’s foreign policy positions”, the message from Brussels reads.

Asked by RFE/RL, an EU spokesman said the EU wants to count on Serbia as a reliable European partner for common principles, values and security.

“And Serbia needs to convince us of its strategic orientation,” said the EU spokesperson.

Serbia’s obligation as a candidate is to align itself with EU foreign policy, as Brussels has repeatedly urged Belgrade to do.

Serbia is militarily neutral, but is a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme and its strategic goal is to join the EU.

At the same time, Belgrade is balancing its foreign policy between the West, China and Russia, which has been isolated in the West since the invasion of Ukraine.

Nikola Lunić, a geopolitical and security consultant, believes that Serbia’s decision to conduct military training with China “undermines Serbia’s proclaimed EU orientation”.

“Strengthening interoperability between Chinese and Serbian troops sends a clear geopolitical message to the West,” he told RFE/RL.

Prior to the training with the Serbian army, the Chinese military conducted manoeuvres in Belarus in July 2024, and that country’s army was located right on the border with NATO.

They took place at the time of the NATO summit in Washington, where alliance leaders expressed “unquestioning” support for Ukraine, while strongly criticising Beijing for its support for Russia.

What is the purpose of the training in China?

According to the Chinese Ministry of Defence, the planned training will “contribute to strengthening the combat capabilities of the participants and deepening cooperation between the two militaries”.

The Serbian Defence Ministry did not respond to RFE/RL’s questions about the objective of this training, nor about which units and how many Serbian army soldiers would participate.

The Chinese Embassy in Belgrade also did not respond.

There is also no information on whether and when the joint training, which normally takes place on a rotational basis, will take place in Serbia.

Joint international training in 2025.

In May, a joint training of military special units from Serbia and Egypt for counter-terrorism operations took place.

The training, which took place in Serbia, involved combat teams from the 72nd Special Operations Brigade and the Egyptian El Sak Force, supported by helicopter units from the Serbian army.

It was followed by similar training in 2024 at training ranges in Egypt.

In April 2025, joint engineering training was conducted between members of the Serbian Armed Forces and the Ohio National Guard within the framework of the Serbia-Ohio Partnership Programme.

This training took place in Serbia.

Nikola Lunić of RFE/RL says that the Chinese Defence Ministry’s announcement suggests that this is a military exercise, not a training exercise.

He said that military exercises do not have a name, so “Peacekeeper 2025” is a more appropriate name for a military exercise, adding that it is also announced that the combat capabilities of the participants will be strengthened.

NATO did not respond to RFE/RL’s enquiry about the announced joint military training between Serbia and China.

Chinese weapons in the Serbian Armed Forces

In 2020, six new CH-92A drones were purchased from China, followed two years later by an FK-3 anti-aircraft missile system.

Serbia thus became the operator of these Chinese missiles and combat drones in Europe.

During the presentation of the new equipment of the Serbian Armed Forces in April 2023, the new Chinese CH-95 drone was presented to the public.

It has not been officially announced how many drones of this type have been purchased.

The Serbian Ministry of Defence reported at the end of 2024 that training had been conducted in China for the FK-3 missile system, which can target various types of aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones.

Brussels and Washington have repeatedly expressed concern about Serbia’s arms purchases from Russia and China.

Following the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022, Serbia imposed a moratorium on all military exercises with foreign partners.

An exception is the international tactical exercise “Platinum Wolf”, in which units of the Serbian armed forces are strengthening their ability to participate in peacekeeping missions.

The Platinum Wolf exercise has been conducted in Serbia since 2014, with the participation of NATO members, including the United States of America.

Adviser Nikola Lunić considers that Serbia’s participation in the “Mirovnik 2025” exercise with China represents a significant geopolitical contradiction with the country’s stated foreign policy objectives and calls into question the consistency of Serbia’s military neutrality.

“It is obvious that the moratorium is based on political, not principled, criteria, which makes military neutrality lose all international credibility because of its selectivity,” he says.

The military training was preceded by police exercises.

The upcoming military exercises will not be the first between Serbia and China in the field of security.

In previous years, exercises have been held by the special police units of Serbia and China, and the two countries have an agreement on joint police patrols from 2019.

Vuk Vuksanovic of the non-governmental Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCBP) reminds us of China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) 2023 document.

It also states, as he says, that China will strengthen its security partnerships and exchanges in the field of military and police education.

Enhanced security cooperation between Serbia and China, according to Vuksanovic, is reflected in the purchase of Chinese military equipment, police cooperation and Chinese surveillance technology.

“From Serbia’s point of view, this is just a continuation of the multi-vector policy and the rebalancing policy,” he assesses.

What is in China’s interest?

According to Vuksanovic, the Chinese military and police are looking for partners to gain international experience.

He notes that European countries have generally been reluctant to do this, so the Chinese have relied on partners such as Russia.

“This (with Serbia) is an attempt to gather international experience, but it is also very useful for promoting China as a new rising world power,” he said.

In July 2019, ahead of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a joint military-medical exercise between that country and China, “Combined Aid 2019”, was conducted in Germany, focusing on preparations for response during humanitarian crises.

This exercise has been described in foreign media as the first event of the Chinese military’s attempt to forge closer ties with Europe.

In recent years, Serbia and China have been strengthening their economic and political relations, which the two countries describe as an “iron friendship” and a “strategic partnership”.

During the second visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Belgrade in May 2024, a declaration was signed on deepening the strategic partnership and “building a Serbia-China community with a shared future in the new era”.

Belgrade was one of the three addresses, along with Paris and Budapest, that Xi Jinping visited during his visit to Europe in spring 2024.

Meanwhile, China has become Serbia’s largest foreign trade partner in terms of imports, which amounted to €5.13 billion in 2024.

The Belgrade authorities rely on China for economic investment and loans. They also count on China’s support in international organisations and institutions to oppose Kosovo’s independence./RSE/