Is something going to change in Europe after Xi Jinping’s visit?

Although he has the image of an active leader, in recent years China’s President Xi Jinping has not traveled as much outside his country. In Europe, except for the territory of the Russian Federation, he has not set foot before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019. And when he did, any foreign trip was carefully thought out to convey a political message, as it was in 2023, the case of Xi’s visit to Russia.

Now in 2024, Xi Jinping’s first international outing was on a tour of three European countries, two from the EU, one from outside the Union: France, Serbia and Hungary. Each of his stops was chosen to convey various messages about China’s relations with the continent and the tensions on the global stage.

Ahead of Xi’s European tour, however, numerous European leaders have travelled to Beijing. Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron, Pedro Sánchez, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel were among those who visited Xi in the past year, to talk about economic relations, strategic autonomy, the Taiwan issue or human rights.

All stops are highly strategic choices

If, officially, Xi visited France to celebrate 60 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, unofficially, the choice of the Chinese can come on two lines: that of the fact that Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, is a supporter of the idea of ​​”autonomy strategic”, which foresees a distancing of the EU from the USA, a partner considered more unstable with the mandate of Donald Trump. Here, China has an interest in further distancing EU-US relations.

The second significance of the visit is also related to Emmanuel Macron, who is currently the longest in office and most influential European leader and, therefore, will have a decisive say in appointing the future leadership of the European Union, after the European Parliament elections in June.

Macron did not disappoint Xi, giving him a lavish welcome and even walking with the Chinese leader to the Pyrenees, a place of personal significance for the French president, given that his grandmother’s tomb is there.

But before heading to the Pyrenees, the two leaders were joined in Paris by Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, who, at Macron’s invitation, attended the talks with Xi Jinping. If Macron wanted to indicate, through this initiative to invite von der Leyen, EU unity, in fact, European unity has degraded, given that five years ago, at a similar visit by Xi to France, the French president had also invited Angela Merkel. But Olaf Scholz, the current German chancellor, did not join the three leaders this time.

However, the EU and France negotiated with China from a stronger and more coherent position in 2019. Von der Leyen was very blunt when she said that “Europe will not give up on taking tough decisions to protect its economy and security”. And that’s what the EU has been doing lately: hitting China with a series of investigations into solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and even medical devices.

EU wants to be less dependent on China

Von der Leyen advocated reducing the export of Chinese overcapacity – those products that are not absorbed by the Chinese market, with production far exceeding existing demand in the country, particularly in electric vehicles and steel, on the grounds that it distorts the European market. The President of the European Commission also spoke to the Chinese leader about the need for Europeans to have access to the Chinese market based on reciprocity. Currently, European companies do not have access to the Chinese market as Chinese companies do to European markets.

The European Commission is trying to reduce European dependencies on Chinese production chains, which is one of the basic ideas of the EU’s de-risking policy. The significance of this initiative can be seen in the war in Ukraine and the heavy economic and commercial decoupling with Russia.

If von der Leyen had a more incisive approach to the Chinese state, Macron, in the role of host, elegantly avoided the discussion of electric cars, a topic that keeps the two sides in check. Incidentally, both Macron and von der Leyen spoke about the problems caused by the war in Ukraine and called on China to use its influence on Russia to help end this conflict. The two Europeans asked China not to sell weapons to Russia.

On the other hand, Xi wrote in the French newspaper “Le Figaro” that he wants the war in Ukraine to be resolved and that he “hopes that peace and stability will quickly return to Europe and that he intends to work with France and the international community to find good solutions to solve the crisis”.

Continuing the narrative that China is not directly involved in the war in Ukraine, Xi said that China is doing everything it can to resolve this war.

Xi also said his country was open to cooperation with France in areas such as innovation and green development, but argued there was no “overcapacity problem of China”.

Serbia is a strong supporter of China

Serbia was another strategic point chosen on the map of Xi’s European tour. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in the former Yugoslavia, Xi came to Serbia not only to commemorate this sad event, but also to mark the iron friendship with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, who with four years ago he referred to Xi as “his brother”.

Serbia is not only one of the Central and Eastern European states that have absorbed among the most Chinese investments, but it is also a strong supporter of China and even Russia. As a display of that affection, Vučić provided Xi with a MiG-29 fighter jet escort upon entering Serbian airspace and welcomed him at the airport with military honours. The streets were draped in Chinese and Serbian flags, and Xi, without the pressure to discuss the war in Ukraine or overcapacity, sampled Serbian wines with the host country’s traditional music playing in the background.

This delicately friendly relationship between China and the Balkan state that wants to be a member of the EU has been the source of many regional controversies and problems. Becoming the fourth pillar of Serbia’s foreign policy (after the EU, the US and Russia), China has invested in 61 projects in Serbia with a cumulative value of nearly 19 billion euros.

But many of the Chinese projects are mired in controversy or implementation issues. The Budapest-Belgrade route was hardly implemented on the Serbian section within 10 years. The steel plant in Smederevo produces an alarming amount of pollution and red dust. Pollution is also the main element of the Chinese investment in the Bor mine. Despite these problems, China remains the largest foreign investor in Serbia.

Xi congratulates Orban on ‘independent’ foreign policy

Xi’s last stop was in Hungary, another China-friendly state, this time from within the EU. If Xi had previously traveled to France and Serbia, Hungary was a first for the Chinese president. Here too, the protocol did not disappoint, Viktor Orban’s government preparing a lavish reception for the Asian guest – so lavish that it almost brought the Hungarian capital to a standstill.

Xi thanked Orban by publishing an article in the Hungarian press, in which he praises China-Hungary relations, but especially the Hungarian prime minister’s ability to maintain his “independence” in foreign policy, which for Xi translates into Budapest’s ability to do not conform to EU decisions and play China’s games.

China-Hungary relations have grown even closer recently thanks to Chinese investments in battery factories such as CATL or Eve Energy, and the mega-factory for the Chinese car company BYD, whose electric cars are the source of some of the current tensions EU-China trade. In 2023, China has become the most important investor in Hungary, the value of investments reaching almost 11 billion euros. According to some Chinese sources, however, Hungarian investments could reach a much higher amount of 30 billion euros by the end of this year.

New Chinese money coming for Orban

However, the Hungarian government has not been able to build the railway section connecting Budapest to the Serbian border as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) flagship project, the Budapest-Belgrade route, in almost 10 years.

Nevertheless, with Xi’s visit, Orban is planning new projects with the Chinese. The Hungarian government wants to build, with Chinese funding, a new railway route connecting Budapest to the airport and another railway, the V0, to bypass Budapest to the south. Both are listed as part of the BRI project.

Regardless of what is done and what is not done of the projects that the two leaders are talking about, Viktor Orban is a useful ace up Beijing’s sleeve, given that Hungary is a member state of the European Union and has blocked actions by Union, such as resolutions on human rights or the South China Sea, which were directed against China.