Chinese flags adorned highways as Serbia got ready to give a home-from-home welcome to Xi Jinping, contrasting tensions on the first leg of the Chinese president’s six-day European tour over a potential trade war with the EU.
Xi prepared for his arrival in Belgrade on Tuesday night by hitting out against Nato for its 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in the Serbian capital, in which three Chinese journalists were killed.
In an article for the Serbian website Politika, Xi wrote: “Twenty-five years ago, Nato flagrantly bombed the Chinese embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, killing three Chinese journalists, namely Shao Yunhuan, Xu Singhu and his wife, Zhu Ying. We must never forget this.”
He said the “friendship of China and Serbia” was “soaked in the shared blood of the two nations” and “the close cooperation between” them since his last visit there eight years ago.
Xi is spending most of his trip to Europe in Serbia and Hungary, which are seen as China-friendly, unlike most of the EU which sees Beijing as a trade and political rival.
While the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, restated the EU’s readiness to impose tariffs on cheap Chinese imports including electric cars after her talks with Xi on Monday, Xi can expect full support in Belgrade, and in Budapest when he travels there later this week.
Before leaving France, Xi visited the Pyrenees with the French president, Emmanuel Macron. He said he would welcome more high-level talks on trade frictions, but denied there was a Chinese “overcapacity problem”, casting doubt on how much progress could be achieved on trade.
After watching traditional dancers perform under the snowy peaks, the two leaders ate locally grown ham, lamb, cheese and blueberry pie. Macron gave Xi a woollen blanket made in the Pyrenees, a Tour de France jersey and armagnac from the nearby south-western region.
French brandy is at risk of being hit by Chinese trade sanctions after Beijing opened an anti-dumping investigation into European brandy, seen as retaliation for the EU’s mounting number of inquiries into alleged Bejing subsidies for exported electric cars, solar panels, wind turbines and medical devices.
French and Chinese companies concluded some agreements on Monday in areas including energy, finance and transport on the sidelines of Xi’s visit, but most were agreements to cooperate or renewed commitments to work together, and there were no significant deals.
European hopes of an Airbus plane order to coincide with Xi’s visit appear to have been dashed, with the two sides agreeing only to expand cooperation.
A European diplomat said Xi was the winner of the visit, having “cemented his image as the ‘ruler of the world’ where westerners are begging him to solve European problems in Ukraine”.
Serbia and Hungary are supporters of Xi’s signature belt and road initiative to build ports, railways and power plants around the world as a way of boosting soft power and economic growth. Direct Chinese investment in the two countries exceeds €15bn, with more coming including China’s first electric car factory in the EU, which will be built in Hungary.
Xi is expected to highlight a new high-speed train service between Belgrade and Budapest that is being built by China Railway, underlining the willingness of the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, to do business with Beijing.
On the political side, all eyes will be on Vučić and the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s east-west balancing act, with both countries also considered friendly towards Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Last year Orbán reaffirmed his commitment to bilateral ties with Russia when he met Putin on the sidelines of a belt and road conference in Beijing, causing outrage in the EU.
Xi heaped praise on Vučić in his letter in Politika, talking about their “meetings, telephone conversations and exchange of letters” and noting China’s position “as the largest source of foreign investment and Serbia’s second largest trade partner”.