Between Normative Influence and Securitization Dynamic: China’s Engagement in the Visegrád Group

Jakimów, Małgorzata

Abstract

The Visegrád Group of Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, constitute the core countries within the 16(17)+1 platform created by China to facilitate its Belt and Road investments in Europe. Since 2013, these countries’ governments have slowly diverted towards China-friendly, and even China-admiring, ideological rhetoric, which often parted with the liberal post-communist choices of defending human rights, and positioned China as a new norm-setting alternative to the Brussel’s consensus. However, since 2019, the disappointment over the unfulfilled investment expectation and the controversies around China’s 5G networks started to give way to a growing re-securitisation of China by some of the V4 states. Based on the analysis of the political elites’ speeches and the accompanying policy actions, this book chapter provides an assessment of the ways in which China has exerted normative influence on the local political elites of the V4 states and how this ability has been affected by the shifting securitisation dynamic around Chinese investments.

Citation

Jakimów, M. (2024). Between Normative Influence and Securitization Dynamic: China’s Engagement in the Visegrád Group. In I. Roy, J. Eckhardt, D. Stroikos, & S. Davidescu (Eds.), Rising Power, Limited Influence: The Politics of Chinese Investments in Europe and the Liberal International Order (121-142). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192887115.003.0007

• Online Publication Date: Feb 15, 2024
• Publication Date: Feb 15, 2024
• Deposit Date: Apr 11, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 12, 2024
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Pages: 121-142
• Book Title: Rising Power, Limited Influence: The Politics of Chinese Investments in Europe and the Liberal International Order
• Chapter Number: 6
• ISBN: 9780192887115
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192887115.003.0007
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2382433