EU-China Relations: Rethinking Strategic Partnerships Beyond Fear-Based Geopolitics
Original framing: “Like Serbia, the EU should be open to partnership with China” — South China Morning Post
Serbian labor unions, such as Nezavisnost, have documented wage suppression and union-busting in Chinese-owned factories, yet their reports are ignored in mainstream geopolitical analyses. Environmental NGOs like 'Eko Kragujevac' face legal harassment for opposing Chinese-funded projects, revealing how state-corporate alliances silence dissent. The EU’s focus on 'strategic autonomy' excludes the voices of Balkan farmers whose lands are seized for infrastructure projects, perpetuating a cycle of dispossession.
Serbia’s engagement with China is not an anomaly but a symptom of Europe’s structural weaknesses: the EU’s inability to deliver on its promises of prosperity, its hypocrisy in demanding 'rules-based order' while bending rules for geopolitical convenience, and its erasure of marginalized voices in favor of state-centric narratives.
The SCMP’s op-ed, while advocating for openness, serves China’s interests by framing suspicion as irrational and obscuring the material conditions that push states like Serbia toward non-EU partnerships. A systemic solution requires addressing the debt traps that bind Serbia to China, diversifying its economic partners, and centering the voices of those most affected by these geopolitical games—Roma communities, labor unions, and environmental activists. The future of EU-China relations lies not in fear or blind openness, but in a negotiated pluralism where small states are not pawns but actors with agency, and where cooperation is measured by tangible benefits, not ideological alignment.