The summit between China and Central and Eastern Europe was held on February 9 in a videoconference situation. Although many European countries have indicated in advance that they lack interest in the summit with Beijing and will downgrade or even cancel their participation, Xi Jinping insisted on presiding over the meeting instead of Li Keqiang, and also delivered a speech.
Xinhua News Agency published the full text of Xi Jinping’s speech at the CEE summit on September 9, in which he expressed his willingness to cooperate with CEE countries in the area of CCP vaccines, his hope to accelerate the construction of the “Belt and Road” represented by the Hungarian-Serbian railroad, and his commitment to import a total of more than 170 billion USD worth of goods from CEE countries within five years. The government has also pledged to import more than 170 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods from Central and Eastern European countries within five years.
Observers say Xi’s entire speech can be described as meaningless when one considers that Beijing’s promises have always been difficult to keep.
The China-CEE summit, also known as the “16+1 Cooperation”, has been held annually since 2012 and expanded to “17+1” when Greece joins in 2019. The summit has always been seen as a door for the Chinese Communist Party to penetrate Central and Eastern Europe under the guise of economic and trade cooperation.
What is striking about this year’s summit is that Xi Jinping has broken the long-standing rule of dispensing with Li Keqiang’s role as “conference chair” and instead taking the helm himself.
Before the China-CEE summit last year, news broke that the opening session of the summit would be hosted by Xi Jinping, instead of the eight-year practice of being chaired by the Communist Party Premier, and that Xi would deliver the keynote speech.
The summit was later postponed to Feb. 9 this year due to the impact of the Chinese Communist Party virus, and was held by video instead.
Observers believe that for Beijing, the CEE countries have limited economic and geopolitical value. And influenced by the international trend of confronting the Chinese Communist Party, before this summit, member countries Lithuania, Estonia and Romania have decided to turn back the Chinese invitation and send at most lower-level officials to attend, but Xi Jinping still insisted on coming on board in the face of the cold treatment from the other side, mainly to take full power and further hollow out Li Keqiang.
If Xi Jinping wants to be re-elected, he will have to keep gathering power before the 20th CPC National Congress, and thus break all the political rules set by the CPC to share the benefits of the cake. This is likely to provoke more intense infighting at the top of the Communist Party.
Recent Comments