The leaders of China and Central and Eastern European countries are scheduled to hold a summit on the 9th, but according to German media reports, although Xi Jinping will personally attend the summit, a number of European leaders have declined to attend this year, which is seen as a setback to China’s efforts to bring in Central and Eastern Europe.
China and Central and Eastern Europe summit to be held on the 9th “17 +1” leaders videoconference, but German “business newspaper” cited diplomatic channels, said that despite the Chinese President Xi Jinping will personally attend the summit, Central and Eastern European leaders lack of interest in this summit. The leaders of Lithuania, Estonia and other Baltic states, as well as Romania, have decided to decline China’s invitation and send at most lower-ranking officials to attend.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced on February 9 that Chinese President Xi Jinping will host the China-CEE Leaders Summit in Beijing on February 9 and deliver a keynote speech. A related Xinhua report vaguely states that the summit is a Chinese initiative, to which leaders or high-level representatives of CEE countries and representatives of China-CEE cooperation observers will be invited. The summit will be held by video.
China and CEE established the “16+1” mechanism in Warsaw in 2012, and Greece joined in 2019, expanding it to “17+1”. Austria, Switzerland and Belarus are observers of this summit organization. The 17+1 summit was originally scheduled for early last year, but was delayed until February this year due to the rampant Newcastle Epidemic, and was finally decided to be held by video teleconference.
Beijing has traditionally attached great importance to the summit, and has recently been trying to get the Baltic states to send high-level representatives to attend, with little success. German newspaper “Handelsblatt” reports that some CEE countries are disappointed with this cooperation mechanism with China, not only because they are disappointed that China’s investment commitments have not been fulfilled, but also because the summit is seen as too politically charged and lacking in economic and trade content.
Deutsche Welle quoted the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as reporting that another controversy before the summit was whether Belarus, which has been accused by the EU of election fraud and suppression of domestic opposition, could attend as an observer, and that Beijing did not intend to keep Lukashenko out, while Poland and the three Baltic states wanted to prevent the country from attending.
In addition, the 17+1 mechanism has been controversial in the EU, which fears that Europe will be divided by China. Estonia’s new Prime Minister Karas recently said through a spokesman that he would rather participate in the EU’s “27+1” mechanism, which is to use the EU-27’s common policy to deal with China.
Due to the divergent views of many countries and China, the parties have not yet officially announced the date of the summit.
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