China’s Interest in the Baltics – Motives and Implications

Historically, very little can be said on the topic of Sino-Baltic relations. During the interwar period, even though Republic of China had recognized the independence of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, most of the exchanges took place via the London diplomatic representations, and no meaningful intergovernmental agreements were signed (with the exception of China-Latvia Friendship Treaty of 1936). During the decades of Soviet occupation, the three Baltic States did not have even limited foreign affairs sovereignty, exchanges only took place through Moscow and dried out altogether in the early 1960s due to the Sino-Soviet split. The re-establishment of independence in 1991, however, put the Baltics on the Chinese maps for a very practical reason – they became a diplomatic battleground between PRC and Taiwanese interests. Eventually, after a short Formosa-Baltic honeymoon, the relations with PRC were normalized – not least due to the official position of the international organizations that the Baltic States were looking forward to joining. Since 2011, however, PRC has been exceedingly present in the Baltic States through the “17+1” cooperation framework and BRI. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are rarely represented in BRI maps and the exact nature of projects is unclear, and the scope of economic cooperation remains low. In addition, since 2018 trends of pushback have become more pronounced, a significant disillusionment and securitization of China has developed, symbolically beginning with the inclusion of China in the list of security threats by the annual Lithuanian National Threat Assessment, followed by less harsh but similar in substance statements from Latvia and Estonia. The presentation aims at answering such questions as: • what is the historical and current motivation of China’s presence in the Baltic States? • How important to the motivation are the domains of market access, resource acquisition, political prevention and image/perception boost? • Is influence or rather just presence China’s current goal in the Baltics? • What are the possible scenarios, given that the Hong Kong crisis has had a deep diplomatic and societal impact on Sino-Baltic relations since 2019? • What lessons can other regionally integrated clusters of small European states draw from the Baltic regional dynamic vis-à-vis China? • What are the implications of China’s attempts at political influence in small member states for the EU? [The research presented has been conducted and peer-reviewed at Stanford University Center for East Asian Studies under the Fulbright Visiting Scholar program.]