From 5 to 10 May 2024, Chinese President Xi paid his first visit to Europe in five years, which brought him to France, Serbia, and Hungary. Xi’s trip to Europe took place amid a growing geopolitical tension across various regions of the world and that Washington has been seeking to implement a decoupling or de-risking policy targeting China by aligning with its key allies. Under this circumstance, Xi’s visit to Europe was considered significant for China, Europe, and the world.

Through his trip, Xi highlighted the importance of the traditional friendship between China and the three European countries, and expected to further strengthen political relations and deepen collaboration in various fields with these three and beyond.

 Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron hold talks at Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on 6 May 2024. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

As for China’s relationship with France, the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1964. Apparently, in history France was ever at the forefront in the western world in developing a formal relationship with China. With regard to the cooperation between China and France, there could be a big space for the two countries to jointly explore concerning a wide range of issues such as climate change, clean energy, biodiversity, nuclear energy, and finance etc. Apart from that, the two counties have agreed to strengthen coordination on the governance of utilizing AI technology. Besides China-France collaboration at a bilateral level, against the backdrop of a growing complex geopolitical environment, China values the significance of France and the European Union in promoting multilateralism in regional and global affairs and in maintaining global strategic balance by preventing a new cold war or bloc confrontation.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic sign a joint statement on the building of 

a China-Serbia community with a shared future in the new era, after their talks in Belgrade, Serbia, on 8 May 2024. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen)

In relation to the development of China-Serbia bilateral ties, with Xi’s visit to Serbia, the political relationship between the two countries was upgraded from a comprehensive strategic partnership to a China-Serbia community with a shared future. Among other issues, China is a very important investor to Serbia and was the number one source country of foreign direct investment in Serbia in 2022. The free trade agreement between the two nations signed last fall will formally come into effect on 1 July this year, which would further boost the growth of China-Serbia bilateral trade volumes. Over the past years, China-Serbia bilateral cooperation have seen many fruitful results in a number of areas including economy and trade, green and clean development, finance, infrastructure, cultural exchanges and so on.

Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest, Hungary, on 9 May 2024.(Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

With Xi’s trip to Hungary, China and Hungary elevated their political relationship from a comprehensive strategic partnership to an all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership. In relation to China-Hungary cooperation among other range of issues, in a joint statement, the two countries agreed to seek synergistic cooperation between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Hungary’s “Eastern Opening” policy. The Belt and Road cooperation with a combined efforts of China, Hungary, and Serbia has made a tangible progress. For instance, one of the BRI flagship projects - the construction of the Budapest-Belgrade high-speed railway - is currently underway. Besides that, in the new era, China and Hungary are expected to further expand their collaboration in trade, investment, infrastructure, AI, logistics, and new energy etc. In 2023, China was listed as Hungary’s largest investor, and around 7.6 billion euros out of 13 billion euros in foreign direct investment that Hungary totally attracted were from China. Meanwhile, to facilitate the collaboration between the two nations in promoting green development and local job creation, the Chinese carmaker BYD plans to build a manufacturing base in Hungary for producing new energy vehicles.

Overall, Xi’s visit to Europe reflected that China has an interest in consolidating collaboration with the European countries from the political, economic, and strategic perspectives.

In response to the diplomatic activities held by China and the three European countries, some analysts viewed that they could further divide the positions held by western countries on China-related issues.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a China-France-EU trilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron 

and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on 6 May 2024. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

Meanwhile, from China’s perspective, China and Europe engaging with each other, instead of seeking unilateral strategic gains, is essentially “complementary and mutually beneficial” in terms of their relationship, as expressed by Chinese President Xi during his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. By bearing this purpose in mind, China would tend to work with its European partners to manage their differences on certain issues from time to time.

Generally, against an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape, China sees Europe from a long-term strategic perspective, and considers Europe a very crucial economic partner and also one of the important pillars in helping maintain global strategic stability, in shaping a properly balanced global system, and in contributing to global peace and stability.