中东欧视点: 中国需面对“一带一路”带来的意外效应| “一带一路”大家谈

国观智库多年来一直积极开展“一带一路”相关研究工作，为其建设献言献策。2019年4月，中国将举办第二届“一带一路”国际合作高峰论坛。值此之际，国观智库特推出“一带一路”大家谈系列专题，邀请国内外各领域专家从不同方面解读“一带一路”倡议，以飨读者。

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Emilian Kavalski，宁波诺丁汉大学国际关系学院中国-亚欧关系与国际问题研究首席教授，全球丝路研究所主任。研究领域：国际关系理论、国际安全、外交学、“一带一路”倡议、亚欧关系、全球基础设施互联互通项目、上海合作组织等。

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大国试图影响其他国家及特定危机的努力往往适得其反，中国需面对“一带一路”倡议带来的意料外影响。今年年初，中国与中东欧国家合作"放缓"。中国可能需要反思一下，淡化言辞，并努力倾听对“一带一路”倡议所失望的伙伴国声音。

中国在欧洲大陆引入的创新体制结构中所蕴含的持久力，似乎令欧盟感到不安。对大多数中东欧国家而言，“一带一路”倡议为其树立国际身份、展望全球事务提供了新的平台。

总之，中国已经成为了欧洲大陆上一股成熟的力量。不得不承认，国际事务中的行为体不仅是相互联系或相互依赖的，而是在错综复杂的互相纠缠和碰撞中获得了意义和价值。

“一带一路”在中东欧的意外效应

The Unintended Effects of China’s Silk Roads in Central and Eastern Europe

本文仅代表作者观点

“一带一路”倡议（BRI）通常聚焦于亚洲（包括中亚、南亚和东南亚）和非洲的参与国。然而现如今欧洲，尤其是中欧和东欧（CEE）的后共产主义国家，也成为了“一带一路”倡议的重要组成部分。事实上，中东欧地区是参加2017“一带一路”国际高峰论坛中最具代表性的区域组成之一：出席论坛的29个国家元首或政府首脑中，有4个来自该地区（捷克、波兰、匈牙利和塞尔维亚），罗马尼亚则派出了一个由该国副总理领导的代表团。这反映了在“一带一路”倡议的支持下，中国与中东欧国家加强了发展合作。众所周知，中国与16个中东欧国家领导人的会晤机制被称为“16+1”合作，这16个国家包括阿尔巴尼亚、波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那、保加利亚、克罗地亚、捷克、爱沙尼亚、匈牙利、拉脱维亚、立陶宛、马其顿、黑山、波兰、罗马尼亚、塞尔维亚、斯洛伐克和斯洛文尼亚。“16+1”机制涉及十分多样的国家集团。在16个参与的中东欧国家中，有11个是欧盟成员国（其中有5个也是欧元区成员国），4个是欧盟候选国，1个是潜在候选国。因此，对许多观察家而言，中东欧国家和中国开展的多次高级别首脑会议、商务会议和代表发言似乎正在欧洲大陆上开启一个区域合作的新篇章。

然而，在2019年初，这一合作进程似乎暂时告一段落，特别是在波兰和捷克这两个“一带一路”区域合作伙伴表示他们打算将中国通信公司华为排除在各自的5G网络之外的时候。今年1月，波兰以间谍罪指控逮捕了华为高管。与此同时，捷克总理安德烈·巴比什指责中国驻捷克大使蓄意欺骗，并下令禁止其政府办公室人员使用华为和中兴通讯设备。在中美权力竞争背景下，波兰和捷克的立场看似很容易得到解释，但实际上，华沙和布拉格似乎都表示支持华盛顿而不是北京。这种解释确有道理，但不够全面，它忽略了一些可能导致波兰、捷克与中国对抗的偶然因素。

波兰和捷克被认为是中国与中东欧国家关系的两个典型代表，他们与北京的友好关系一度引起了欧盟和美国的强烈批评。中国-中东欧合作的最初动力是希望促进两个地区经贸关系的多样化。在这方面，中东欧国家对全球趋势并不陌生，世界各国都希望从中国庞大的外汇储备和不断增长的市场所带来的繁荣中获益。这一趋势在2008年全球金融危机后变得尤其明显，因为这场危机使得传统投资国的投资能力下降。然而，在“16+1”合作启动五年多之后，大多数中东欧国家与中国的合作并没有产生切实的成果，还招来了欧盟和美国的批评。这并不意味着中国在中东欧国家的贸易和投资没有增加，贸易和投资确实增加了，但在大多数情况下只是增量轻微。现有的贸易量和投资水平还未达到中国所承诺的那样。欧盟（以及欧盟成员国）仍然是中东欧地区各国的主要贸易和投资伙伴。在这种情况下，“16+1”合作中的一些参与国对中国越来越失望，在某些情况下（如波兰和捷克的情况所示），他们似乎愿意在为时已晚之前及时止损。这种反弹——即得到与预期目标相反的结果，很可能随着“一带一路”倡议的发展，成为中一个更常见的特征。

因此，中国似乎需要面对其在推广“一带一路”倡议时所带来的意料外影响。任何合作项目，尤其以“一带一路”倡议的体量和规模来说，都可能产生意料外的影响。在许多方面，这种波折可能是意料之中的，因为地缘政治学本身就是一场复杂且不可预测的博弈。研究大国演变的学者表明，大国从来没有把全部外交政策的注意力集中在世界的某一个地区或领域。同样值得关注的是，他们对自己行动的结果可控性降低。基于其全球扩张的性质，大国必须密切关注世界的每一个角落。因此，用一个比喻，他们大多患有“注意力缺失多动症”（AD/HD）——由于需要不断地涉足于众多国家、地区以及际事务中，他们无法长时间将注意力集中在某一特定国家、地区或问题上。由于需要在世界各地展示一种持续的行动能力，大国往往表现得极度活跃。因此，大国试图影响特定危机和国家的努力往往适得其反，因为他们不能集中注意力来关注其中任何一个。这一推论更适合新兴大国，他们尚未有足够的经济基础来推行他们的全球战略，但却又努力想要实现在全球获取更高的声誉和地位的预期。与此同时，正如中国所发现的，这些预期既不是统一的，也不是互补的。正是在这种独特的“预期能力差距”的背景下，使得意料外的影响激增。

这里需要强调的是，这种意料外的影响不一定对“一带一路”倡议或中国的长期目标不利。相反，如果这种反弹结果一直不能得到解决，那才是真正不利的因素。需要注意的是，中国可能需要花点时间反思一下，淡化其言辞，并努力倾听对“一带一路”倡议所失望的伙伴国声音。在中东欧地区，不满的主要原因之一是中国没有履行承诺。中国政府承诺将在中东欧国家加大投资、深化合作，并且举办更多高级别会议。然而，除了塞尔维亚和匈牙利，对于其他大多数中东欧国家而言，这些承诺仍然基本只是一句空话。

“16+1”合作所带来的另一个意料外的影响可能是欧盟对中国-中东欧国家关系的批评。中国-中东欧合作的目标之一是推动更广泛的中欧关系格局。然而，到目前为止，结果似乎恰恰相反。中国在欧洲大陆引入的创新体制结构中所蕴含的持久力，似乎令欧盟感到不安。“16+1”合作似乎已不仅仅是年度峰会的代名词，而是逐渐成为由中国倡议界定的区域机构。在这方面，中国-中东欧关系通常被忽视的一个意料外的影响是，对于大多数中东欧国家而言，“一带一路”倡议为其（重新）树立国际身份、展望全球事务提供了新的平台。简言之，在冷战结束近30年后，“一带一路”倡议为中东欧外交政策提供了另一个支点。传统上，中东欧国家的立场受到美国（北约）、欧盟和俄罗斯之间三方复杂关系的影响。在这方面，华盛顿、布鲁塞尔和莫斯科已经为中东欧国家树立其国际身份和利益提供了出发点。中国在中东欧地区的出现，为重新定位其国际立场提供了独特的机会。这并不意味着所有中东欧国家立场都将彻底改变，这仅意味着北京可能会成为影响中东欧国家树立自身国际身份的第四个支柱，而这一点需要被纳入考虑范围。

因此，显而易见的是，无论出于何种目的，中国已成为欧洲事务中的一个重要影响因素。正如“一带一路”倡议所表明的那样，中国的影响力将不仅仅是在欧洲大陆上的短暂存在，而是将一直在这里发挥作用。这种推论不仅反映在“16+1”机制密集的制度化改革，或西方国家对于“一带一路”倡议的多重反应上，本文认为，这些表述更是中国在欧洲事务中陷入更广泛和更复杂纠缠的体现。在这方面，“16+1”机制越来越被视为中国通过部署其经济实力来与欧盟主导的规范进行竞争的标志。换言之，互通性作为新丝绸之路的基础，通过将其对亚欧大陆地缘政治的涉入、贡献和参与具象化，使中国牢牢地嵌入到区域合作模式中。总之，中国已经成为了欧洲大陆上一股成熟的力量。不得不承认，国际事务中的行为体不仅是相互联系或相互依赖的，而是在错综复杂的互相纠缠和碰撞中获得了意义和价值。

特别感谢国观智库政策研究中心研究助理马思远对本文的贡献

The spotlight of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is usually on the Asian (be they Central Asian, South Asian, or Southeast Asian) or African participants. Yet, Europe – especially, the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) – forms an important part of the BRI. In fact, the CEE region was among the best represented regions at the 2017 Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation launching the initiative: of the 29 heads of state or government 4 were from the region (Czechia, Poland, Hungary, and Serbia), while Romania sent a delegation led by the country’s deputy prime minister. This reflects the very intense development of the China-CEE cooperation under the auspices of the BRI. Better known as the “16+1”, China has been developing relations with sixteen CEE states: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The “16+1” mechanism involves quite a heterogeneous group of countries. Of the sixteen participating CEE states, eleven are EU member states (five of which are also members of the single currency Euro-zone), four are EU candidate countries, and one is a potential candidate state. To many observers, therefore, the multiple high-level summits, business meetings, and statements by representatives of the CEE countries and China seem to be framing a new regional context in the European continent.

Yet, this appeared to be coming undone at the start of 2019 when Poland and Czechia, two of Beijing’s erstwhile regional partners in the BRI, indicated their intention to exclude the Chinese telecommunications company, Huawei, from their respective 5G networks. In January, Poland arrested Huawei’s country director on allegations of espionage. At the same time, the Czech PM Andrej Babiš ordered a ban on the use of Huawei and ZTE devices by government officials after accusing the Chinese ambassador to the country of wilful deception. It would be easy to interpret the Polish and Czech positions only in the context of a global struggle for power between the USA and China. Indeed, it would seem that both Warsaw and Prague have indicated support for Washington over Beijing. Yet, while still part of the explanation, such an assessment overlooks several contingent factors that have played a significant part in both Warsaw’s and Prague’s willingness to seek confrontation with Beijing. 

Positioned as two of the poster children of China’s relations with CEE countries, Poland and Czechia have attracted significant criticism from both the EU and the US for their bonhomie with Beijing. The initial impetus for the CEE cooperation with China has been the desire for diversification of their trade and economic relations. In this respect, the CEE countries are no strangers to the global trend, where countries the world over are seeking to benefit from the bonanza promised by China’s huge reserves and growing markets. This trend has intensified particularly since the 2008 global financial crisis, which saw decreasing levels of funding from traditional donors and investors. However, more than five years after the “16+1” was launched, apart from the EU and the US criticism, most of the CEE countries have little else to show as a tangible outcome of their relations with China. This does not mean that Chinese trade and investments in the CEE countries have not increased, on the contrary – they have; but in most cases only marginally. The levels of trade and investment have not been matched by the volume of Chinese rhetoric. The EU (and the EU Member States) remains the main trade and investment partners for all the countries of the CEE region. In this setting, a number of the CEE participants in the “16+1” are growing increasingly frustrated with China and, in some instances (as the cases of Poland and Czechia might indicate) they appear willing to cut their losses before it is too late. Such rebound results – that is, outcomes that are contrary to the intended goals – are likely to become a more common feature of the BRI. 

It would seem, therefore, that China needs to confront itself with the unintended effects of its BRI outreach. Any connectivity project – especially, on the scale of the BRI – is likely to have unexpected results. In many ways, such hiccups are perhaps to be expected. Geopolitics is a complex and unpredictable game. Scholars studying the evolution of great powers have demonstrates that they never have all their foreign policy attention focused on a single area of the world. What is equally important, they have even less control over the outcomes of their actions. Owing to the nature of their global outreach, great powers must keep an eye on every part of the world. As a result, they all suffer from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) – an inability to keep their focus on any one country, region, or issue for long periods of time, due to the need to constantly reify their involvement in all other countries, regions, and issue areas all at the same time. Consequently, great powers are hyperactive owing to the need to demonstrate an ongoing ability to act in every part of the world. As a result, the attempts of great powers to influence specific crises and countries always tend to backfire, because they cannot keep their undivided attention on any of them. Such inference is even more pertinent for rising powers, who are yet to establish the institutional wherewithal to sustain their global aspirations, while at the same time struggling to meet the expectations of their emergence to global prominence. At the same time, as China is discovering, these expectations are neither uniform, nor complementary. It is in the context of such unique “expectations-capability gap” that unintended effects proliferate. 

The point here is that such unexpected outcomes are not necessarily harmful to either the BRI or China’s long-term objectives. What however would be detrimental is if such rebound results remain unaddressed. In particular, China might need to take a moment of reflection, toning down its rhetoric and amplifying its listening to the frustrations of its BRI partners. In the CEE region, one of the main reasons for dissatisfaction is the lack of implementation of the pledges made by China. Beijing has been promising the CEE countries more investments and deepening cooperation, while offering numerous opportunities for high level meetings and photo-ops. Yet, perhaps, with the exception of Serbia and to an extent Hungary, in the majority of the other CEE countries, these pledges are still mainly a rhetoric.

Probably, the main unintended effect of the “16+1” has been the criticism from the EU of China’s relations with the CEE countries. One of the aims of the China-CEE cooperation was to facilitate the broader pattern of China-EU relations. Yet, the result so far seems to be the very opposite. What the EU seems to find upsetting is China’s staying power implicit in the creative institutional architecture that it is introducing in the continent. It seems that the “16+1” is becoming more than an annual summit but is gradually moving towards a regional institution defined by Chinese initiatives. In this respect, one of the usually overlooked unintended effects of China-CEE relations is that for most CEE countries the BRI offers novel platform for the (re)articulation of their international identity and global outlook. In short, almost three decades after the end of the Cold War, China’s BRI offers an alternative pivot on their foreign policy horizon. Traditionally, the outlook of the CEE states has been subject to a complex triangulation between the US (NATO), the EU, and Russia. In this respect, Washington, Brussels, and Moscow have provided the point of departure for the articulation of their international identities and interests. The emergence of China in the CEE region has provided a unique opportunity for the re-articulation and re-positioning of their established international stance. This does not mean that all CEE states will radically shift their outlook. The suggestion merely is that Beijing might provide a fourth pillar in the projection of the international identity of CEE states and, as such, it needs to be taken into account.

As a result, what is already becoming obvious is that, to all intents and purposes, China has emerged as an important factor in European affairs. As the BRI demonstrates, Beijing will not be a fleeting presence on the continent, but an actor who is here to stay. Such inference reflects not merely the dense institutionalization of the “16+1” mechanism, nor the multiple reactions by the EU and Euro-Atlantic organizations that the BRI initiative has garnered. Instead, the claim here is that these are symptomatic of a much broader and more complex Chinese entanglement in European affairs. In this respect, the “16+1” mechanism has increasingly started to be seen as an indication of China’s capacity to deploy its economic prowess to contest the dominant norms, rules, and arrangements promoted by the EU. As such, the practices of connectivity underpinning the new Silk Roads embed China firmly in local patterns of interaction by reifying its engagement in, contribution to, and participation in the shifting geopolitical realties on the continent. In short, the assertion here is that China has already become a fully-fledged European power. This move implies an acknowledgement that things in global life are not merely interconnected and/or interdependent, but that they gain meaning and significance within complex webs of entanglements and encounters with others.

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国观智库成立于2013年，是中国最知名的独立智库之一。国观智库始终坚持“行知·致远”的发展理念，用知行合一、行稳致远的态度和实践致力于中国的安全、繁荣和稳定，研究领域聚焦于海洋战略与蓝色经济、边疆治理与全球反恐、”一带一路"与境外投资。