China undercuts Kremlin influence in Balkans with Serbia power play

By Robert Stanley | 2025-06-09

Just hours after Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić stood shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin at Moscow's Victory Day military parade in early May, he quietly slipped into a Russian-made limousine -- not to meet again with his Russian host but to hold a private audience with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The symbolism was unmistakable. In the heart of Moscow, under the gaze of his longtime Russian allies, Vučić sought deeper ties with China's leader -- signaling a pivotal shift in Serbia's geopolitical loyalties.

For more than two decades, China has carefully cultivated its relationship with Serbia, steadily positioning the Balkan state as a key gateway into Europe for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The BRI is a global infrastructure project meant to facilitate exports of raw materials to China.

According to statements issued after the Xi-Vučić meeting, discussions centered on Chinese investment, including plans for a train factory in Serbia and a $1 billion Chinese contract to rebuild part of a high-speed railroad linking Belgrade to Budapest.

Xi hailed the "ironclad friendship" between the two countries, while Vučić touted concrete gains, saying Beijing was close to green-lighting the factory project.

Yet the deepening ties come as Serbia -- officially a candidate for European Union (EU) membership -- drifts steadily away from Western values and into the orbit of authoritarian regimes.

For China, Serbia is a key entry point to Europe. Serbia is "a kind of door that opens up space to a wider European market and to some strategic investments" for China, Vedran Dzihic, a senior researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty last year.

On a visit last year to Europe, Xi squeezed in a trip to Serbia, and as China's Foreign Ministry noted, "Serbia is China's first comprehensive strategic partner in Central and Eastern Europe."

The payoff has been mutually beneficial: while Serbia supports China's One-China policy, denying Taiwan's independence, China has backed Serbia's stance that Kosovo, a former province that declared independence in 2008, is an internal Serbian issue. China refuses to recognize Kosovo as an independent state.

Kremlin's fury

But the cozy partnership has raised alarm. Serbia's warming to China coincides with growing tensions with Moscow.

In late May, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) accused Serbia of secretly supplying arms and ammunition to Ukraine, warning that Serbian armorers had completely "forgotten who their real friends are and who their enemies are."

The Kremlin's fury highlights an emerging rift between the two Slavic nations, traditionally bound by shared Orthodox and nationalist identity but now taking different paths.

"China, not Russia, is Serbia's most important partner in the East at the moment, especially with Russian-Serbian ties under constant scrutiny because of Ukraine," Vuk Vuksanovic, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, told RFE/RL last year.

Chinese money has encouraged Serbia to drift away from Russia's embrace.

Since a landmark 2009 economic agreement, China has poured investment into Serbia, including the Hesteel Group's 2016 acquisition of the Smederevo steel plant, the 2018 takeover of the RTB Bor copper mining complex and the launch of the Čukaru Peki copper-gold mine near Bor in 2021 by Zijin Mining.

These projects have created jobs in a country where unemployment hovers above 8%, but the benefits come at a steep price. Environmental damage linked to Chinese investments has triggered anti-government protests, while concerns grow about Serbia's democratic backsliding.

Expanding military cooperation

"Serbian elites use China as a source of cash and domestic legitimacy," wrote Vuksanovic of the Belgrade Center for Security Policy in a 2022 study. Chinese financing, he noted, flows faster than EU funds -- and comes without demands for transparency or rule-of-law reforms.

The trend is already visible in Serbia's foreign policy alignment. In 2015, Serbia supported 66% of EU foreign policy declarations, according to Belgrade's Center for Contemporary Politics. By the first half of 2024, that figure had plunged to just 47%, according to another Belgrade think tank, the International and Security Affairs Center.

Meanwhile, military cooperation between Belgrade and Beijing is expanding. Agreements signed in 2023 may pave the way for Chinese arms sales to Serbia -- and potentially make the country a staging point for exporting weapons to Africa and Eurasia.