The text titled "Peking suppresses Moscow: How Serbia becomes a Chinese vassal state in Europe" by Alexander Rotert is part of an open-source project in which "Berliner Zeitung" (BZ) and "Ostdeutsche Algemaine" give all interested parties the opportunity to offer texts with content relevance and professional quality standards.
In the text, the author reminded of the fact that Serbia is getting even stronger partnership with the People's Republic of China and that in turn Beijing is gaining more and more influence in Europe. Rotert believes that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić started to redirect his course towards Moscow towards Beijing some time ago, Deutsche Welle (DW) reports.
"Serbia continues to have close intelligence cooperation with Russian services - specifically with the internal service of the FSB, the external service of the SVR and the military service of the GRU. Also, Russia's propaganda activities in Serbia are very pronounced and especially spread through the propaganda channels Sputnik and RT," the text states.
"But when it comes to military-technical cooperation and arms deliveries, Beijing has long since replaced Moscow, because more than 60 percent of Serbian arms imports come from China".
Photo: Tanjug/Jadranka IlićWelcome to Belgrade to Chinese President Xi Jinping
China increasingly present
Then the author recalls the first Serbia's participation in the Chinese military exercise, on the free trade agreement from 2023, and on Chinese companies that implement infrastructural and mining projects worth billions in Serbia.
The text did not fail to mention Chinese ballistic hypersonic air-to-ground missiles of the CM-400 AKG type, with a range of up to 400 kilometers, which have recently been owned by Belgrade, or the Chinese FK-3 anti-aircraft systems purchased in 2022.
"According to the data of the Stockholm Institute for Peace Research (Sipri), small Serbia, with only 6,5 million inhabitants, took the 37th place in the world in terms of arms imports," states the author. He adds that Serbia, since the time of the Yugoslav Federation, "has a very strong military-industrial complex, thanks to which it can produce a large part of conventional weapons and related ammunition."
The text states that Croatia is concerned about arming Serbia and that Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković "personally sent a letter to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte about Chinese ballistic missiles on Russian MiG-29 aircraft".
"The Devil We Know"
"The mass arming of Serbia in all branches of the military - including ten types of drones, among them the Chinese CH-95 - began more than a decade ago and in the meantime undermined the significant successes of regional disarmament: the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia in 1995, agreed on extensive disarmament measures between the then warring parties - Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. These measures were successfully implemented within the framework of 'Dayton' until 2012. under the supervision of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). However, since Vučić actually took over power in Serbia in the same year, he has been gradually strengthening the Serbian armed forces".
Photo: Tanjug/Dragan KujundžićFriendly visit to Beijing: Aleksandar Vučić and Xi Jinping
Aleksandar Rotert then moves on to quoting anonymous sources, which perhaps makes the text more interesting, but also more speculative: "Unofficially, Vučić is considered the ``lesser evil'' in NATO: ``Vučić is the devil we know,'' said one diplomat who wished to remain anonymous. Many international actors spoke similarly about Milosevic in the 1990s. Vučić (we hope) is not another Milošević, but with his massive militarization of Serbia and aggressive, expansionist rhetoric, he intimidates small and mostly militarily weak neighbors, especially Belgrade's two main victims: Bosnia and Kosovo. Beijing also does not recognize Kosovo's independence, which further strengthens the Serbian threat".
The text then cites examples of escalation in Kosovo - the conflict between Serbs and members of the KFOR peacekeeping mission in 2023, but also in Banjska, as well as the escalation after that conflict: "Vučić's tanks stopped just before the border. Without the intervention of the then US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, there would have been a new war for Kosovo," the author claims. He adds that the delivery of Chinese hypersonic missiles to Serbia is only the last link in a long chain of deliveries of military equipment.
Why do you say friendship, but you mean bare interest
Russia, Belarus, Serbia
"The EU's high representative for foreign policy, Kaja Kalas, repeatedly criticized Belgrade and Vučić last year and warned: ``Serbia faces a strategic, geopolitical choice of where it wants to be. The European future of Serbia depends on the values it chooses.'' However, instead of taking the EU's warnings seriously, Vučić attended military parades marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, first in Moscow and then in Beijing. In addition, Belgrade continues to ignore EU sanctions against Russia and provides Moscow with civil air connections between Belgrade and several Russian airports.
During his second visit to Serbia in 2024, Xi said: ``Eight years ago, Serbia became China's first strategic partner in Central and Eastern Europe and now it is the first European country with which we will build a common future.'' Beijing is gradually pushing Moscow out of the Balkans in the military and economic sense. Chinese influence in Serbia is growing rapidly, both militarily and economically, and the West barely notices it. Serbia is thus gradually becoming a Chinese vassal state. The recently published study of the Bertelsmann Foundation on the state of democracy fits into that context, in which Serbia - along with Belarus and Russia - is classified as the only autocracy in Europe."
Source: Deutsche Welle (DW)
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