China's triple malignant influence 

Mr. Aleksandar Vučić announced from Jiaxing, from the opening ceremony of the Chinese-Serbian Youth Cultural Center, on May 27 that new investments worth 953 million euros had been agreed with China. This is not true. Namely, in the Tanjug report, sent on the same day, all the investor companies and their investments were precisely listed individually, which were eventually summed up. That is why the information (correctly) stated that the agreed investments were more than 940 million euros, which is a rounded sum from the completely accurate sum of 942.8 million euros. 

If the goat lies, the horn does not lie, as they would say; here is the table: 

Investor) 

 Investment (in millions of euros) 

Minth Group 1 

135 

Mint Group 2 

91 

SHAK  

33.5 

BMTS Technology  

13.3 

Xingyu Automotive  

77 

Linglong Tire  

566 

Yusei  

27 

TOTAL:  

942.8 

No one denied Tanjug's news, but all Serbian officials, including the Minister of Economy and Deputy Prime Minister, Adrijana Mesarović, repeated Vučić's calculation, even though it is obviously incorrect. I guess, as in "The Emperor's New Clothes", no one is allowed to tell the master the truth. 

However, this is not political poltroonism or the biggest problem. It is bigger when we hear similar things from experts from (formally) independent institutions. Thus, Ivan Nikolić, President of the Council of Governors of the National Bank of Serbia, recently on state television, precisely on the occasion of Vučić's visit to the country of the "cross-eyed masters of the celluloid ball", stated in support of cooperation with China, approximately, that when you agree on something with the Chinese, then it is sure to be implemented. 

So the next day I went to Borča to visit the large industrial park that Aleksandar Vučić, while staying in China, then as Prime Minister, had agreed on back in 2015. I was sure that the park had long been completed, since back in 2018 a commercial contract was signed with the company "China Road and Bridge Corporation" (CRBC) - so, not a "memorandum of understanding" or "letter of intent" but a solid commercial contract - on its construction. To make no more jokes, nothing has come of the project worth 300 million euros, which envisages the opening of no less than a thousand high-tech companies, to this day. It is not clear how Ivan Nikolić, who is a young man, could have missed this, and on a show called "Oko". 

By the way, none of the seven investments mentioned can be classified as high-tech, on the contrary. And the largest (and dirtiest), the Linglong company in Zrenjanin, was announced a long time ago, and officially a month ago, on April 26th, during Mesarović's ten-day (April 20-29) stay in three Chinese provinces – Guangdong, Shandong and Hebei. 

However, speaking of the NBS, in the package of about thirty different agreements (to be exact, 33, it seems) there was also a "currency swap arrangement" between the National Bank of Serbia and the National Bank of China. This is, in essence, a kind of modernized (financial) "barter arrangement", i.e. barter, such as the SFR Yugoslavia concluded with the Soviet Union more than half a century ago. The value of this new, five-year arrangement (as it is proudly emphasized, significantly larger than the previous, three-year one) is five billion yuan, i.e. 74 billion dinars, or about 630 million euros. "For the National Bank of Serbia, this agreement does not only represent an available financial line with the National Bank of China, which can be used as an additional mechanism to protect the country's financial stability in conditions of increased global uncertainties, but also a seal of good long-term cooperation and growing trade and economic relations between Serbia and China," said NBS Governor Jorgovanka Tabaković on this occasion. 

What does that really mean? Let's start from the fact that the value of trade between Serbia and China in 2025 amounted to 8.3 billion euros. Serbia exported goods to China worth (approximately) 1.9 billion euros and imported goods from there for 6.4 billion euros. Compared to 2024, Serbian exports increased by four percent and imports by a full 25 percent. It is indicative that in the exchange with its largest foreign trade partner, Germany, Serbia has a much more balanced relationship. Moreover, last year, exports from Serbia to Germany (5.1 billion euros) were higher than imports (4.9 billion euros). So now you see who is a more beneficial partner for Serbia. 

Now let's return to the currency arrangement. If its total amount is divided over five years, the annual value is about 120 million euros, which represents only 1.5 percent of the total foreign trade exchange between Serbia and China last year. What kind of "mechanism for protecting the country's financial stability in conditions of heightened global uncertainty" could this be? Of course, none. Just another stitch in the emperor's new suit. 

Finally, the most important thing. When Vučić announced from China that Serbia would join the production of microchips, robots and other high-tech wonders, I remembered one of his similar but unjustly forgotten undertakings. Back in 2013 (July 31), “First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić and Minister of Finance and Economy Mlađan Dinkić” received representatives of the “Mubadala” company from the United Arab Emirates and discussed “cooperation in the field of information technologies and… the construction of a chip factory in Belgrade”. 

“Serbia is our second homeland. We did not come to set conditions, but to present proposals for partnership. We came to give you ideas and to support you. This is what true friends do”, emphasized on that occasion the CEO of “Mubadala” company Waled Ahmed Salim Almokarab Al Muhairi. 

After that, Dinkić’s political career suddenly went downhill, while Vučić advanced more and more. We don’t have to look for a chip factory, everyone knows it doesn’t exist. Nor does Vučić's friend, for that matter. 

Serbia, however, has another, much more significant and valuable, real high-tech factory. And a factory that is truly, "from head to toe", a work of our brains. It is the "BioSens" Institute, capable of the most sophisticated scientific research in the field of micro and nano technologies, which has been declared a European Center of Scientific Excellence, equal to the most exclusive world institutions of its kind. That is why the European Union supported it, in every way, including tens of millions of euros. Well, for more than a year now, Aleksandar Vučić has been trying with all his might to break up, dismantle and destroy this and that institute. He managed to drive away the first man and founder of the Institute, the world-renowned expert Vladimir Crnojević. And soon the others will follow him. 

Why? Because they did not want to go to the rallies of the Serbian Progressive Party. And why else? Because then Vučić could triumphantly bring the Chinese to sell us our technology. 

All this raises the question of China's influence on Serbia. More precisely, on the lives of so-called ordinary citizens in Serbia. First, from a purely economic point of view, China brings certain short-term material benefits, but in the long term it prevents the development of the domestic economy and domestic professions; simply put – it dumbs down the nation. 

Second, from a political point of view, China builds factories but dismantles democracy – by making non-transparent contracts, avoiding legal procedures and encouraging corruption. The Memorandum of Cooperation between the Serbian Progressive Party and the Communist Party of China best illustrates this. 

And third, culturally, civilizationally, China brings a system of values ​​that is not European, or rather, one that is not based on the ideas of universal human rights and freedoms (Liberté, égalité, fraternité) but belongs to the ideology of Asian despotisms. For a country like Serbia, where these ideas have not yet taken root, this is tantamount to a catastrophe. 

All in all, China's malignant influence on Serbia has a threefold effect.