Welcome back to the China In Eurasia briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China's resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.
Starting next Wednesday, July 24, this newsletter will be going out every week. Be sure to follow along for the latest news, unique analysis, and reporting from the ground that's assembled for you in an easy-to-read format and sent directly to your inbox.
I'm RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish and here's what I'm following right now.
NATO Eyes Its China Era
In a NATO summit in Washington centered on the war in Ukraine and extending support to Kyiv, the Western military alliance also took aim at China for being "a decisive enabler of Russia's war" by supplying Moscow with dual-use products.
Finding Perspective: Beijing promptly batted away the label as "lies and smears" but the criticism continued to mount in Washington.
NATO has steadily increased its focus on China over the last several years, with Beijing's support for Moscow amid its full-scale invasion of Ukraine marking a tipping point for the alliance to shift how it views the world's second-largest economy.
At the summit, which wrapped up on July 11, the joint declaration by all 32 NATO members warned about unspecified consequences to "its interests and reputation" for enabling "the largest war in Europe in recent history."
Speaking on stage in Washington, Benedetta Berti, NATO's policy planning director, said that China's steady supply of critical dual-use goods was the reason why Russia has been able to keep waging its war against Ukraine.
And while there was no official announcement, several NATO officials said that the alliance was discussing how -- and whether -- it could reclaim some Chinese-owned infrastructure projects in its member states. Those investments are now seen as security liabilities should a wider conflict with Russia break out in the future.
For NATO, such moves are seen as giving China a choice: stop supporting Russia's war effort and build a constructive relationship with the West or be treated as an adversary.
NATO also invited Indo-Pacific partners Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea to Washington, where they discussed how to deepen cooperation and coordinate pushback against potential Chinese designs in the South China Sea and elsewhere in the region.
Counterprogramming: There were signs, however, that this message was not well received.
On the eve of the NATO summit, China and Belarus kicked off 11 days of joint military exercises near the Belarusian city of Brest, some 5 kilometers from the Polish border, as I reported here.
Beijing said the exercises were not directed at any particular country, but Vladimir Kupriyanyuk, the deputy head of the General Staff of the Belarusian armed forces, said the maneuvers were a response to the "West's aggressive foreign policy toward Belarus" and to "Ukrainian provocation."
While small in scope, the drills highlight growing cooperation between Beijing and Minsk at a time of high tensions.
As Katia Glod, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told me, that's valuable for Belarus's autocratic leader, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, as he spars with the West, but looks to balance his dependence on Russia with a tighter embrace of Beijing.
In addition to the drills in Belarus, Chinese and Russian naval forces kicked off a joint exercise at a military port in southern China on July 14.
Why It Matters: Realistically, there are few cards up NATO's sleeve that can stop Chinese companies from assisting Russia's war effort, but the alliance can apply new pressure on Beijing in Europe and elsewhere.
NATO is a defensive alliance focused on Europe and there has been concern and pushback from its members over too much emphasis on Asia, but as the maneuvers in Belarus show, China is also active along the alliance's borders in Europe.
Beyond the new messaging against China, the elephant in the room at the summit was the looming U.S. presidential election and former U.S. President Donald Trump leading the polls.
Both Trump -- and J.D. Vance, his newly announced running mate -- have been critical of NATO in the past and many on the Republican side are advocating for drawing down U.S. support for Ukraine in order to better direct resources towards China and the Indo-Pacific.
But as China's close ties with Russia and the series of drills around the NATO summit show, those two different theaters in Europe and Asia are becoming increasingly blurred together.
Three More Stories From Eurasia
1. China's Big Economic Meeting
After months of unexplained delay, top officials from China's ruling Communist Party gathered in Beijing on July 15 for the so-called third plenum, a major closed-door meeting held roughly once every five years to map out the general direction of the country's long-term social and economic policies.
The Details: The conclave is important because it signals the direction forward for the Chinese economy as it faces major challenges and deepening tensions with the West.
China's businesses and consumers have suffered in recent years through stumbling growth, a property-sector meltdown, and a blight of debt among local governments.
Officially, China's economy is doing well. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5.3 percent year on year in the first quarter, a solid rate that Beijing says validates its strategy of redirecting resources away from property and local government infrastructure projects, which once drove nearly a third of the economy, and into advanced industry instead.
Proof of the success of this new model, Chinese officials say, is China's emerging dominance of green-energy-transition industries such as electric vehicles. A new report from Global Energy Monitor found that China is building two-thirds of the world's wind and solar projects, and that figure doesn't even include the expansion under way outside of the country.
But the country is also dealing with economic problems on the back of years of stringent pandemic controls that have triggered mounting social frustration over falling property prices and reduced employment opportunities that have seen ordinary Chinese curb their spending.
On July 15, Beijing released new data that showed a sharp slowdown in economic growth. China also registered a record $99 billion trade surplus in June, adding to concerns that Beijing is leaning on exports to try and pull itself out of an economic slump.
2. Taiwan For Ukraine?
At the Republican National Convention on July 15, Trump chose Senator J.D. Vance as vice president on his ticket.
Vance has been one of the U.S. Congress's most vocal opponents of aid for Ukraine and previously stated the biggest threat to the United States was a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
What You Need To Know: While it's by no means clear how much sway Vance would have over a future Trump administration's foreign policy, it's safe to say that his selection amplified doubts about continued U.S. support for Kyiv should Trump be elected.
As a senator, Vance has said that he wants to limit U.S. attention on Europe and reorient the country's resources toward countering China's rise.
In February, Vance told the Munich Security Conference that the United States needed to focus its efforts in Asia instead of Ukraine, a region that he argued would dominate U.S. foreign policy for the next 40 years. He also argued that manufacturing Patriot system missiles for Ukraine would deny such weapons to Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
It's also worth noting that Taiwanese officials, speaking to me and to other reporters, have actually advocated for strong U.S. support for Ukraine, saying that not allowing Russia to gain from its war is the best way to deter China from deciding to launch its own invasion.
Vance has based his support for Taiwan in mostly economic terms, saying the self-governing island that China has vowed to retake by force, if necessary, must be protected because of the risk that an invasion could "decimate our entire economy."
3. Serbia's Nuclear Energy Chessboard
Driven by a need to diversify its energy sector and pivot away from cheap Russian gas, Serbia is moving to end the country's decades-old policy banning the construction of nuclear power plants on its territory.
But in doing so, Belgrade also finds itself on a new geopolitical fault line involving nuclear energy in Eastern Europe, Mila Manojlovic of RFE/RL's Balkan Service and myself reported.
What It Means: Several Serbian ministries announced on July 10 that the country was weighing whether to end the 35-year-old, Yugoslav-era ban on nuclear reactors and said public debate was being opened on the shake-up of Belgrade's long-standing energy policy.
Prior to the start of Russia's February 2022 invasion, Serbia relied on cheap local labor and discounted Russian gas to make its mining and manufacturing industries competitive and attractive to investors.
But Western sanctions and market turbulence have increased the price of Russian gas and seen Brussels and Washington attach a political price tag to making new deals with Russian companies.
That leaves Vucic walking a tightrope between the need to improve Serbia's energy security by adding nuclear power and the geopolitical considerations brought by the country Belgrade decides to partner with.
Serbian officials are actively weighing their options, with companies from France, Britain, and China leading the pack, along with a potential plan to buy a stake in a Hungarian nuclear plant near the two countries' shared border.
Across The Supercontinent
Belarus Joins The SCO: As expected, Belarus became the 10th member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), as the regional security bloc continued to position itself as an alternative to the West.
Central Asia Spotlight: After the SCO summit in Astana, Chinese leader Xi Jinping went to Tajikistan for a state visit, where he repeated the growing Chinese talking point for the region by promising that Beijing will defend the "territorial integrity" of Tajikistan.
Modi Between China and Russia: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrapped up a high-stakes visit to Moscow on July 9, where his growing frictions with Beijing may be leading him to bolster relations with Russia, my colleague Dragan Stavljanin writes.
Saudi Hedging: Is Saudi Arabia replacing the United States with China in its security mix? Riyadh is building rapport with Beijing and increasing its imports of Chinese weapons amid pressure from Washington over human rights issues.
One Thing To Watch
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made headlines with his controversial trips to Moscow, Beijing, and Mar-a-Lago, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi, and Trump, respectively.
The private meetings sparked backlash in Brussels and were focused around the war in Ukraine, with Orban saying in a private letter to EU leaders -- seen by RFE/RL -- that Trump will quickly demand peace talks between Russia and Ukraine if he wins November's U.S. presidential election and has plans to do so.
In the letter sent to European Council President Charles Michel and other EU leaders, Orban also noted that Xi believes it is likely that "the next round of international peace talks will take place already before the end of the year" with both Ukraine and Russia in attendance.
That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.
Until next time,
Reid Standish
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