Insights in Expertise

Ask ten people in Southeast Europe what Chinese influence in the region actually looks like, and the answers will cluster at two extremes. For some, China is a strategic and security threat, buying loyalty through debt, elite capture and infrastructure. For others, it is a product of Western scaremongering, a story that inflates a marginal and beneficial presence into a geopolitical drama. Both pictures are confidently drawn, but neither is complete or particularly reliable. The gap between...

• Polarization, Expertise, Strategy

In Southeast Europe today, China is not a distant actor despite the geography. It is a neighbour in policy, a stakeholder in infrastructure, a player in markets, and a voice in political conversations. It appears in ports, factories, public tenders, university classrooms, in social media discussions and news headlines. Often its presence is visible, sometimes not – for strategic reasons. Sometimes it is woven into agreements, investments, or relationships that unfold quietly, but with long-term...

• Strategy, Engagement, Expertise