ChinaObservers

Who is who? Hungary & Slovakia welcome Chinese factories, while Czechia builds ties with Taiwan & TSMC. How is it going? Find out more in our new article👇
🔗https://buff.ly/Q9RNMuP

#CEE #Taiwan #China #EVs #Semiconductors #IndustrialPolicy

In a must-read for anyone following CEE's industrial transformation, @dominikaremzova.bsky.social maps the competing gravitational pulls shaping the industry – Chinese EV capital vs. Taiwanese chip diplomacy. Where do they differ? See the table below👇
🔗https://buff.ly/Q9RNMuP

Yet it’s not all doom and gloom.⛅
✅ 66% say the EU will grow in strategic importance
✅ 30% plan to expand in Europe
✅ 55% are optimistic about green & digital collaboration

🚗 The Foreign Subsidies Regulation is hitting hard, especially in EVs.

70% of surveyed firms feel a direct impact

30% are changing investment plans in the EU

What are the things Chinese investors are worried about?
💭 Political tensions, market barriers & rising compliance costs
⚠️ 64% of investors report they face differential treatment due to their Chinese origin.
📉 Almost 90% say “economic security” measures hurt their operations.

🔻According to a new report by the China Chamber of Commerce to the EU, the EU business environment score has fallen (again).

🚨 Chinese investors are reassessing the EU. What's going wrong—and what could go right? 🧵Read our new article by Ewa Radomska. #China #EU #FDI #Trade #Policy #EVs buff.ly/Hnsf1MH

Why an explosive fight erupted over the UK's new Chinese embassy - BBC News It will be the biggest embassy in Europe, if approved. But its opponents fear it brings with it certain risks and dangers

🇨🇳🇬🇧 China wants to build the biggest embassy in Europe in the heart of the financial district in London. ⚠️ Critics of the proposal raise concerns about espionage, human rights violations, and potential monitoring of dissidents. Read more at #BBCNews:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🌏 And Michał Bogusz's (@boguszmichal.bsky.social , @osweng.bsky.social ) "Sino-Russian 'Weltanschauung'" is right here: chinaobservers.eu/sino-russian...

⛓️ Michael Cox's "Friends of Steel: Russia and China in a New Era" is shared on our CHOICE website thanks to our partnership with @lseideas.bsky.social , and you can find it here:
chinaobservers.eu/friends-of-s...

❓ Are they really getting "too close" for their own good? Check out the latest CHOICE articles about the Sino-Russian relationship!

⚔️ Michał Bogusz, however, argues that their shared worldview is one of the only things they can trust within the relationship. As long as they believe that the Sino-Russian partnership works, and that the greather threat is outside of it, the tandem remains strong.

🤝 In his article, Michael Cox underlines the historical analogies and the symbolism following their public friendship. Both of them emphasize the importance of the lessons of WWII, that China and Russia must work together to promote an "equal multipolar world", after all.

🇨🇳 Xi Jinping & 🇷🇺 Vladimir Putin: "Bromance", or a marriage of convenience?
🤝 Their relationship is at the very heart of a lot of speculation. Are they really close friends, despite not sharing a common language? Or is their relationship purely pragmatic?

Let's see 🔎

🇮🇷 🇮🇱 Despite China's ambitions within the Middle East, the Iran-Israel war and its swift resolution reinforced Washington's role in the region, undermining 🇨🇳 's self-proclaimed peacemaker status, writes Oliver Konradt in his latest CHOICE article 👇 chinaobservers.eu/the-iran-isr...

The 2025 EU-China Summit: Perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe – chinaobservers As the 25 th EU-China summit approaches – scheduled for July 24 in Beijing, following a series of high-level meetings between European and Chinese officials, in

🔟/X Read the full article with our CHOICE insights below! What do you anticipate from the EU-China Summit? ❓
chinaobservers.eu/the-2025-eu-...

9️⃣🇱🇹 The geopolitical instability on multiple fronts is now visible even in Lithuania's messaging. Despite once being among the most pro-US EU members, 🇱🇹 is now expressing cautious openness to the idea of EU strategic autonomy, writes Elzė Pinelytė.

8️⃣🇨🇿 The trade dependencies of the EU on China must be addressed, with the geopolitical and economic considerations front and center in the EU's engagement with China, if EU still wants to find stable footing in its path towards strategic autonomy, adds @agromancov.bsky.social .

7️⃣ ... Hungary and its automotive industry heavily rely on Chinese rare earth element imports, e.g. neodymium and dysprosium. 🧲 From Hungary's POV, it's of utmost importance that any export restrictions from China be lifted. ❌

📸 by BYD

6️⃣🇭🇺 Réka Koleszár points out the economic ties between the CEE countries and China, especially regarding EVs.🔋🚗 Hungary, although consistently pro-Chinese, may be tempted to increase tariffs, to attract Chinese manufacturers looking to produce in Europe. On the other hand,...

5️⃣🇵🇱 @adrianbrona.bsky.social brings up the geopolitical, but also the economic disparities between the two. 🇨🇳's position of support towards Russia "undermines EU's efort to uphold the international rules-based order, is compounded by China’s industrial policies that distort global trade."

4️⃣🇪🇺🇺🇦 However, the European side is now fairly preoccupied with other issues, too, including the threat of tariffs by the United States, and the continued support of Ukraine against the Russian agression. As such, the summit is mostly viewed as ceremonial, especially in the CEE.

3️⃣🇷🇴 Andreea Brinza notes: "The summit appears to have become almost a formality. Xi Jinping reportedly declined to travel to Brussels, the event's been downsized, and there were also (now disputed) rumors that Xi may skip the meeting with @vonderleyen & @antoniolscosta altogether."

2️⃣💨 The EU is navigating a period of intense turbulence: Economic, diplomatic, and, crucially, security-related. The upcoming summit follows a series of high-level meetings between EU and Chinese officials, including @kajakallas, Wang Yi (@MFA_China), and others.

🇨🇳🇪🇺 What to expect from the 2025 EU-China Summit? ⁉️🧵

The 2025 EU-China summit is about to commence on Thursday, July 24. What can stakeholders from the Central and Eastern Europe (but also from the EU more broadly) expect? 🔍

#CHOICE #FutureCHOICE #CHOICECommentary

A Quiet Signal: Serbia Deepens Military Ties with China Amid Global Distractions – chinaobservers In late July, special forces from China and Serbia will participate in a joint military training exercise – Peace Defenders-2025 – in China’s Hebei province. Th

‼️ This week, China announced a joint military training exercise with Serbia. Why now? Why China? And what does it mean for Europe?

🇨🇳🇷🇸 Read the latest take by our CHOICE fellow Stefan Vladisavljev:
chinaobservers.eu/a-quiet-sign...

Private Enterprise under Xiconomics: How Party Cells and Golden Shares Work – and What Europe Should Do – chinaobservers This article is a translation of the German-language memo “Chinas Privatunternehmen unter ‘Xiconomics'” by Kai von Carnap, published by the German Council on Fo

💻 Despite presenting as independent, China's tech champions – incl. ByteDance, Alibaba Group, and others – are at the very least partially controlled through CCP party cells, golden shares, and pressure tactics, writes @kavocabo.bsky.social . What should 🇪🇺 do?👇

❌📹 Two Chinese camera suppliers – Hikvision and Dahua – dominate international markets due to competitive prices and product features. ⚠️ However, both these brands are easily exploitable and slow to repair vulnerabilities, writes Ausma Bernot for #CHOICE:
chinaobservers.eu/the-invisibl...

The EU Sees Early Successes in Using Foreign Subsidy Regulation Against Chinese Companies – chinaobservers This article was originally published by MERICS  and is republished here with the permission of the author. The article is part of an ongoing collaboration

🇪🇺💴 The EU's Foreign Subsidy Regulation bears its fruit: Brussels now has unprecedented power to address market-distorting foreign subsidies, writes Andreas Mischer in his @merics.bsky.social article, now also at CHOICE as a part of our partnership! 🤝
chinaobservers.eu/the-eu-sees-...