China-CEEC Cooperation and the EU Response from the Perspective of Regional Security Complex Theory

The sun of China’s might has cast a dragon shadow over Europe. While China’s economic influence in the world has been largely discussed—either in terms of its immediate neighbors in Asia, or in its strained but complementary relations with the US—its European vision has been kept in the dark. Considering the increasing involvement of China in international relations, this paper seeks to answer the following research question: What does the Chinese engagement with Central and Eastern European Countries—such as the one under China-CEEC 17+1 initiative—entail for the European security? To answer the mentioned question, we hypothesize that the involvement of China in the region has negatively affected EU’s efforts to promote policy coherence and to form a common foreign and defense policy, and therefore, the EU has begun securitizing China to limit its influence in the region. Guided by these objectives, this study employs a qualitative research design using official EU and Chinese policy reports and statistics. Given the security dimension of China’s involvement in Europe, Buzan’s Regional Security Complex theory was adopted as the study’s conceptual framework. The research findings suggest that China (through China-CEEC cooperation) has enjoyed direct access to sensitive- security sectors, and differences over the direction of EU project have exacerbated the EU’s difficulty to mount a coherent response.