As China Moves In, Serbia Reaps Benefits, With Strings Attached<br />At the last regional summit meeting, in July in Trieste, Italy, the participating countries — Albania, Bosnia<br />and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, all seeking to join the European Union — also agreed to create a regional economic zone as part of an effort to consolidate a market of 20 million people.<br />Ms. Mihajlovic said Beijing was defending Serbia’s interests in the world,<br />and she praised China for not recognizing what she called an "illegally declared independence of Kosovo." Recognizing the sovereignty of Serbia’s former and majority-Albanian province is a key requirement for Belgrade to join the European Union.<br />His strategy also exploited the European Union’s troubled relations with the West Balkan countries seeking to join the bloc, and signaled<br />that — as the United States retreated from the world stage — China was aiming to expand its influence right into the heart of Europe.<br />In Serbia’s case, its traditionally most generous patrons — Russia and European Union members such as Germany — have demanded<br />that Belgrade alter its governing style in exchange for funds.<br />European Council wrote that Chinese economic corridors<br />and infrastructure projects replicate China’s preference for state-led rather than market-based decisions, with the politicization of investment, subsidy and contract decisions, rejecting the E.U.’s model of open and transparent bidding procedures,
