The just-concluded 17+1 summit between China and Central and Eastern Europe was supposed to be an opportunity for Xi Jinping to show the Biden administration that the United States is not winning Europe’s heart, but the steep increase in vigilance by CEE countries toward Beijing caused the Chinese plan to fail. The summit, hosted by Xi himself, had the lowest level of participation ever.
President Xi does not know how to do math?
The Chinese invented the compass, gunpowder, etc., but not arithmetic, according to a commentary by Koffman published in Le Monde on Feb. 10. On Feb. 9, at the CEE-China video summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping counted on leaders to gather for a “17+1” summit: 17 European countries, plus China, but Six of the 17 European countries were missing, and six decided to send only low-level representatives to the “summit”.
However, this cold reception did not prevent Xi Jinping from declaring at the opening ceremony that “17 + 1 is greater than 18”. Then one could retort “17-6, less than 11.” Xi Jinping’s original statement reads, “We are guided by the belief that 17 + 1 is greater than 18. ……” “We insist that all countries of all sizes are equal, and that they should build and share together.”
17+1 was seen by the EU from the start as an attempt to divide Europe and is now losing its initial aura. The failure of the Chinese to deliver on investment promises has disappointed host countries, trade has disproportionately benefited Beijing, and the outbreak of the new crown Epidemic has dimmed China’s image even more. Last year’s 17+1 had to be cancelled as a result. According to the Nanded daily, the CEE countries have become increasingly suspicious of China and have lost interest in participating in the mechanism. They did not know who to send until the meeting was about to start. The naive phase is over,” said Karaszkova, a scholar at Charles University in Prague.
Encouraged by the ‘China-EU Investment Principles Agreement’ reached at the end of the year, which Merkel was the driving force behind, Xi Jinping decided to convene a video summit of 17 European countries on February 9, and replaced Li Keqiang, who had been representing China at the summit, with his own personal presence. Beijing sees this as an opportunity to show Biden, who wants to join forces with Europe against China, that Europe is far from being a crony of the United States. The Global Times, considered to be the ear and mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, published an editorial saying that China’s relations with Central and Eastern Europe are very strong and have not been affected in any way by the regime change in the United States.
Baltic hits the head
However, on the eve of the summit, Beijing encountered an unexpected problem. Lithuania and Estonia said that the president and prime minister were unable to attend and could only be replaced by ministers, and soon Latvia joined the ranks of those who refused to attend. The French newspaper Le Monde, citing sources close to the Elysee Palace, said that the three Baltic states agreed to take this position in Paris at the end of January, when the three foreign ministers visited the city. The Estonian foreign minister said that participation in the EU-27 mechanism is better than 17+1. For his part, Lithuanian President Nauceda stressed that European-Chinese relations should be based on human rights and democratic values, publicly expressing doubts about the 17+1 mechanism.
The new Romanian government, which came to power at the end of 2019, decided to move closer to Washington and distance itself from Beijing, taking the same decision, followed by Slovakia and Bulgaria. In an exclusive interview with Le Monde in early February, Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Matovic said that he would not attend the 17+1, saying that he would rather negotiate with China together with the EU than divide it.
Chinese Foreign Ministry behind the scenes
Strangely enough, Matovic himself was shown in the video conference on February 9. According to sources close to the Slovak Prime Minister’s Office, Beijing “discouraged” Slovakia from ruining its future! Maybe Slovakia will need a Chinese vaccine one day after all.
In order to make Xi Jinping look good, Beijing authorities deliberately summoned ambassadors to China of countries whose heads are not attending the 17+1 over the weekend, saying that the president or the prime minister himself could not attend and that the Chinese side wanted to replace them with a pre-recorded video. One diplomat said that “China put enormous pressure on us,” but they held up.
The CEE countries’ facepalm upset Beijing, but the Chinese official media continued to be “self-satisfied,” Xinhua reported on Feb. 10 under the headline “Drawing a blueprint to lead the future,” saying, “The model of cooperation between China and CEE countries is a clear example of Chinese diplomacy. The model of cooperation between China and CEE countries reflects the distinctive Chinese diplomacy, which is ‘seeking common ground for the world'”.
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