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Central Europe and China: towards a new relation?
Bondiguel, Thomas |
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The following article will explore the relations between Central European countries and the People’s Republic of China over the past few years and the evolution of its dynamics. I will consider the four countries comprising the Visegrád group, namely Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, with a focus on the latter. While little has been said recently on the increasing ties between Central Europe and China, the overall Sino-European relations have been topping headlines in Western Europe since the beginning of the 2000s when China joined the World Trade Organisation and won the bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games. For a host of reasons which I will develop later on, Western Europe has been much more attracted to China than Central Europe has, but there are signs that this has begun to change. Common people and politicians alike in the region are starting to discover the economic and cultural giant on the other side of the world. We will first examine the circumstances of the relative indifference which has prevailed between Central Europe and China until recently and we will then see the extent to which the two sides have gotten closer to each other. We will conclude by evoking the possibilities and perspectives opened up by this new relationship. |
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