China Will Loom Large in Balkans Once Pandemic is Over

This central contradiction that has shaped the understanding and positioning towards China has been particularly visible when one focuses on China's presence in semi-peripheral regions around the world like the Western Balkans.

China had been already gaining attention in debates on the Balkans before COVID-19 as an external actor that had established linkages to and a real presence in the region since the global financial crisis.

While not the single most important issue in the region, the question of the role and impact of China has persistently hovered over debates on the Balkans in the time of COVID-19, and is poised to become even more central in the post-pandemic era.

Yet, in shaping relations with China, Balkan countries are caught up in the contradiction between practical common sense, which makes China a potentially valuable partner, and the Western normative common sense, according to which China is a threat to regional stability.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, countries in the region have swung between these different discourses, often assuming ambiguous positions.

In early 2020, the Balkans, like the rest of the world, followed the news of the early outbreak in China with shock and disbelief. Debates in the Western media determined those in the region. Skepticism about official information coming from China was dominant. Conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus proliferated. Some, like the theory that the virus escaped a lab in Wuhan, persisted for months. The virus was also racialized, but while this translated into a rise in racial profiling of Chinese and other East Asian people, it did not escalate in the Balkans to the level seen in some other parts of the world.

However, while popular feeling...