According to Pew Research Center, in 2015, 34 percent of Germans had a positive opinion of China, compared to 28 per cent in 2014. This is particularly true in Germany, China’s most important European economic partner, and the U.K., the EU’s top recipient of Chinese foreign direct investments. Part of the reason China so desperately wants to develop European partnerships is to rectify this image. Western public opinion still generally mistrusts the Beijing regime. So, what is in it for China? Put simply, China needs Europe. In fact, individual European countries were openly “cash hungry” - which suited China, with its $3.5 trillion in foreign reserves and powerful sovereign fund. While China’s relations with the United States and some of its Asia-Pacific allies (Japan in particular) became tense, Europe didn’t seem to care very much about strategic issues like the South China Sea or cybersecurity. now considers itself one of China’s best friends in the West, but the June 23 Brexit referendum is causing concern among Chinese investors. The move helped paving the way for major Chinese state-owned investors such as COSCO (China Ocean Shipping Company), the shipping giant now running the Piraeus port in Athens, or grid giant Three Gorges Corp, in the first of a series of sales of state-owned assets under the Portuguese austerity program. But business with Europe only took off during the 2008 euro debt crisis, when former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered to buy eurobonds and help indebted countries such as Greece and Portugal. In the past, European countries competed for a share of the Chinese consumer market. Now they compete for Chinese capital.īeijing’s leadership first started encouraging companies to branch out to the West more than 15 years ago. In Eastern Europe, Chinese investment, it seems, may be a faster way to get at much-needed cash.Ĭhina’s checkbook diplomacy is on the rise. Next month, it will be Belgrade’s turn to host Xi.
Serbia - cash-strapped, largely deindustrialized and in need of investment in infrastructure - has welcomed Chinese external funds to make up for what a commentator calls “local and EU capital shortages.” In late 2015, Serbia and Hungary engaged in separate deals with government-backed Chinese investors for a 350 kilometer Budapest-Belgrade high-speed railway project. Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have all declared themselves willing to develop stronger economic ties. "They should not be described as chequebook diplomacy."īoth Taiwan and China have been accused of using financial aid to gain the support of politicians in targeted Pacific countries.And the Czech Republic is far from the only European country eager to do business with China. "Cooperation and development programs are an obligation and the responsibility of every advanced nation in the international community," he said. Mr Yu says Mr Downer had distorted President Ma's comments. He added that Taiwan would make sure aid money did not go into the pockets of politicians.ĭeputy director-general of the Ministry's Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Victor Yu, said all cooperation projects required financial investment, and what Taiwan was doing was sharing its know-how and technology to help its diplomatic allies.
Mr Ma also said in an international press conference on Sunday that the new Government would focus on areas of economic, scientific and technological cooperation with the nation's diplomatic allies. Mr Downer, who was in Taipei as part of an international delegation to observe the presidential election, said President-elect Ma Ying-jeou gave him a personal assurance Taiwan's new Government will stop paying political bribes to Pacific nations. that has been undermining the work that we have been doing in RAMSI, the Regional Assistance Mission in Solomon Islands, in particular," he said. "There are clearly bribes that are being paid to members of Parliament.
Mr Downer claimed that under President Chen Shui-bian's administration there had been a lot of chequebook diplomacy, specifically with the Solomon Islands. The Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was responding to allegations made by Mr Downer on Radio Australia's Pacific Beat program. Taiwan has hit back at claims from former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer that it uses chequebook diplomacy in the Pacific.