Political science, public administration & international relations

English

China and European Union as Systemic Rival: Assessing Alternative Model Promotion in Western Balkans

2023

27th World Congress of Political Science (IPSA 2023)

IPSA

Buenos Aires, Argentina

15/07/2023

International

In 2019, European Union (EU) published a joint communication named: “Eu-China a strategic outlook”. This policy paper defines China as: “a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance”. Unfortunately, poor conceptual efforts have been made to describe this alternative model promotion. It led academic research to question: To what extent China is a systemic rival? What are the concrete impacts of Chinese influence? How those alternative model promotion works? This article proposes to assess China’s promotion of an alternative model of governance with the case study of Western Balkans. This region is at the cross road between EU enlargement policy and China’s Belt and Road Initiative; it represents a unique arena for the EU-China model confrontation. It makes it an insightful case study to comprehend the impact of being a Chinese partner on domestic, economic and foreign policy. In the end, this research brings new empirical insights on Chinese model promotion. It also deliver acute conceptual reflections about the role partner states might have in the process.

since 03 February 2023