22 November 2018
ISSN: 2560-1628
2018 No.38
WORKING PAPER
The perception of relations with China in East Central Europe in the scope of the tradition of regional integration
Csaba Barnabas Horvath MTA-ELTE-SZTE Silk Road Research Group
Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft.
Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin
Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping
1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 [email protected] china-cee.eu
The perception of relations with China in East Central Europe in the scope of the tradition of regional integration
Abstract:
The present prospering relations between China and the CEE region are in many ways part of a long lasting geopolitical tradition of the region. Dating back for centuries, the geopolitical status of the region has been characterized by a high degree of fragmentation with being composed of more than a dozen of small nations, stucked between the major polities of Germany, Russia, and till the early 20th century the Ottoman Empire. This developed a high sense of vulnerability throughout the region, with its’ nations being subject of domination by the neighboring great powers of Russia, Germany or German polities (such as Austria and Prussia) or the Ottoman Empire. This sense of vulnerability triggered aspirations of both forming some kind of unity among the small nations of the region and a diversification of their foreign relations beyond the region, attempting to deepen relations with great powers beyond neighboring Germany and Russia. From Polish cooperation with Napoleon, through the proposals of the „Danubian Confederation” by Lajos Kossuth, „United States of Greater Austria” by Aurel Popovici, and the „Intermarium” by Jozef Pilsudski, several such proposals appeared throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, the countries of the region simultaniously form closer ties both with China along the frames of the 16+1 Initiative, and with the USA along the frames of the Three Seas Initiative, and this rapproachement with the US and China at the same time, may be confusing and even seem like a paradox without being aware of this historical attitude in the region. In the scope of the described phenomenon however, we can see that it perfectly makes sense, and perfectly fits in the tradition of geopolitical thought in the region.
Introduction
To understand present day trends in international politics, we often have to reach back of centuries old histories and traditions of certain regions. The 16+1 Initiative, that is the key platform of deepening relations between the countries of China and East Central Europe, is no exception. An apparent phenomenon that marks certain trends in the region seem a bit confusing is that while countries of the region apparently seek stronger cooperation with China in the framework of the 16+1 Initiative, on the other hand, as Donalnd Trump attended the Warsaw summit of the Three Seas Initiative, another initiative consisting of most European members of
1 the 16+1, it also became apparent that they also seek a stronger cooperation with the US as well at the same time. Countries that seek closer cooperation with China and the USA at the same time may seem confusing in the scope of the fact that a superpower rivalry is becoming more and more apparent in the Indo-Pacific between these two powers. If we take an overview on historical attitudes in East-Central Europe however, we can find trends and attitudes in political thought in the region that can show the logic behind these seemingly confusing developments. This paper makes an attempt to take such an overview.
Defining East Central Europe
The exact geographical definition of East Central Europe is somewhat fluid. From the narrowest definitions limiting the concept to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, to the broadest ones that expand it to as fat west as Austria, as far east as Ukraine, as far north as Finland, and as far south as Greece. As the 16 countries participating in the 16+1 initiative mainly cover those former communist countries of Europe that are not part of the Commonwealth of Independent States, for practical reasons, in this paper we will use this definition. This also make sense regarding the political, economic, social and psychological delimitation of the region discussed: Those former communist countries of Europe that are not part of the Commonwealth of Independent States are distinct from countries to the west in that unlike those, they experienced communist rule during the Cold War, and what makes them distinct from countries to the east of them, is that while development of countries that joined the Commonwealth of Independent States were still more closely tied to that of Russia even after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the development of these countries were defined by their relations to the EU and NATO ever since the 1990s.
East Central Europe is a region characterized by an especially great degree of ethnocultural and political fragmentation. If we define the region as those former communist countries that are not part of the Commonwealth of Independent Nations, then this means a population of 120 million people, less than that of each of the 11 most populous countries on Earth, divided to 17 countries, with 13 to 16 official languages (depending on whether if we consider the Serbo-Croatian as one single language, or of we distinct Bosnian, Croat, Montenegrin and Serb languages) that belong to four subfamilies of the Indo-European language family (Albanian, Baltic, Romance and Slavic) and two subfamilies of the Uralic
2 language family (Finno-Permian and Ugric).1 The Huntingtonian dividing line between the Western and Orthodox civilizations crosses right through the region, with Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia belonging to the Western civilization, while Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Romania belonging to the Orthodox, and Albania, and Kosovo being Muslim majority countries, and Bosnia being divided between these three civilizations.2 One thousand years ago the region was dominated by three Western, and two Orthodox powers, the three Western being the Kingdom of Bohemia (the historical predecessor of the Czech Republic) the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Kingdom of Poland, and the two Orthodox being the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire. By the end of the 15th century, the Bulgarian and Byzantine empires were consumed by the expansive Ottoman Empire, and by the end of the 18th century, the kingdoms of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland were also taken over by the Austria, Prussia and Russia. By that time, virtually all other polities of the region as well fell under the control of either Austria, Prussia, Russia or the Ottoman Empire, so the entire region was divided between these four powers.3 As countries started to break away from Austrian, Ottoman, Prussian, or Russian rule (or at least made attempts to it) political thought in the region embraced the idea of finding a solution to assure security against these powers. As the Ottoman Empire fell into decline, and no longer appeared as a viable expansive power, and the idea of German unity started to influence Austria and Prussia, by the mid-19th century, this thought took its final form as seeking guarantees against German and Russian pressure. As political thinkers of the region acknowledged that the high degree of ethnocultural fragmentation of the region makes it vulnerable to “divide and conquer” tactics by the feared German and Russian powers, many of them got to a conclusion that some kind of unity in the region could be a solution for the problem. In today’s efforts by countries of the region to view the option of building closer economic relations with China with apparent enthusiasm, we can also find patterns characteristic to this attitude, thus the present trends can also be interpreted as the newest manifestation of centuries old attitudes. To get a better understanding of this phenomenon, at first we take an overview of three notable proposals of regional integration in the region during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
1 Romsics, I. (1998). Nemzet, nemzetiség és állam: Kelet-Közép-és Délkelet- Európában a 19. és 20. században. Napvilág. 2 Huntington, S. P., Dóra, P., Mila, G., Györgyi, G., & Attila, A. K. (2008). A civilizációk összecsapása és a világrend átalakulása. Európa. pp. 255-266. 3 Romsics, I. (1998). Nemzet, nemzetiség és állam: Kelet-Közép-és Délkelet- Európában a 19. és 20. században. Napvilág. pp. 33-71.
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The “Danubian Confederation” proposal of Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian war of independence crushed by the combined force of the Austrian and Russian empires, finalized his plan of the Danubian Confederation by 1862. The Confederation was a plan about how the nations of the Austrian Empire should position themselves in case if they can successfully break away from the empire, as Kossuth assumed that without some kind of unity, they would not be able to withstand German or Russian pressure. The Danubian Confederation was a proposal for a confederation between Croatia, the Kingdom of Hungary, Romania and Serbia.4 The main aim of this proposal was also to unite the strength of these four small nations of the region, to counter the force of the Russian Empire in the east and the forming German unity in the West. The geopolitical framework that would have meant to provide cohesion for this entity was that most of the territory of the constituent countries lay within the watershed of the river Danube, and the proposed confederation in fact covered more than half of the entire watershed. The countries to be included consisted of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, that both were planned to break away from the Austrian Empire, while Romania and Serbia were at that time still under Ottoman suzerainty, but already autonomous states in control of their internal affairs. The proposal was a cautious one in a sense that it did not plan to include any entity of the Austrian Empire from within the German Confederation (such as lands of the Bohemian Crown) nor Polish Galicia, not to speak of any lands under imperial Russian rule, thus limiting the risk of conflict with Russia and Germany. (Presumably encouraging elites of the Austrian Hereditary Lands to consciously give up the multinational empire that up until then, controlled much of Southeast Europe, and instead of that, focus on joining a new, unified Germany.) To the south it didn’t plan to include peoples further deep in the Balkans, such as Bulgaria, Albania or Greece. However it did not specify a southern boundary regarding Croatia and Serbia, it didn’t clarify, whether if it planned to push out the Ottomans from lands inhabited by Serbo- Croat speaking populations still under Ottoman control, such as Bosnia, Montenegro, the Sandzak, or Kosovo. As the proposal aimed to include both Hungary and Romania, one more unclarified issue within the proposal was the question of Transylvania, where at that time, slightly more than half of the population was ethnic Romanian, close to third of the population was ethnic Hungarian, and slightly less than one tenth of the population was ethnic German,5 but was a province of the Kingdom of Hungary. Kossuth accepted the idea of province
4 Németh I. (2001). Európa-tervek. Eötvös Kiadó, Budapest. pp. 121-122. 5 Varga E. Á. Erdély magyar népessége 1870–1995 között. Magyar Kisebbség, 331- 407.
4 participating in the confederation a semi-autonomus province of the Kingdom of Hungary, but didn’t support the idea of it becoming a constituent state on its’ own. Such a confederation would have been a polity uniting much of Southeast Europe, cutting German and Russian access to the Balkans, and forming an economic unity between the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea. However its’ formation would have needed several difficult issues to be solved. First of all, a basic precondition of it would have been for the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia to break away from the Austrian Empire (although Kossuth presumed that in case of a democratic revolution, elites and public opinion of the Austrian Hereditary Lands will no longer be interested in control of non-German lands of the empire, but will be focusing on unification with the other German states). Then to include both Hungary and Romania would have had to reach some kind of compromise over the status of Transylvania (although Transylvania as a constituent state of the confederation on its’ own may have been a viable option for that). Then it is not clear, whether if Hungary and Romania, no longer having any major territorial claims against the Ottoman Empire, would have supported Croatia and Serbia to liberate lands inhabited by Serbo-Croat speaking populations still under Ottoman control, and if they did, then Croatia and Serbia would have needed to reach some kind of compromise over the status of Bosnia.6
The “United States of Greater Austria” proposal of Aurel Popovici
Our second example, the United States of Greater Austria, was a plan to make Austria- Hungary democratic federation. There were several plans to reform the internal structure of Austria-Hungary, and discussing each and every of those would exceed this paper, so this time we discuss only one, perhaps the most interesting one, “United States of Greater Austria” proposal of 1906, by Aurel Popovici, an ethnic Romanian politician from the province of the Banat of the Kingdom of Hungary. The United States of Greater Austria would have been a federal transformation of Austria-Hungary, dividing it to constituent states not along the historical provinces, but on an ethnic basis. Thus lands of the Bohemian crown would have been divided to a Czech and a German state, Galicia to a Polish and a Ukrainian state, Transylvania to a Romanian and a Hungarian (in this case Székely) state, and the Kingdom of Hungary divided along ethnic lines (albeit the planned Magyar state would have been slightly larger than present day Hungary as it would have included Magyar majority areas along the present Hungarian-Slovakian, Hungarian-Ukrainian, Hungarian-Romanian, and Hungarian-
6 Németh I. (2001). Európa-tervek. Eötvös Kiadó, Budapest. pp. 121-122.
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Serbian borders.) a Slovenian state in the south of the Austrian hereditary lands, etc. forming a federation of 14 constituent ethnic states altogether.7 If implemented, the proposal could have meant the continued survival of the Habsburg Monarchy in the form of a democratic federation of ethnic states, providing self rule for all major ethnic groups in the Empire, but at the same time maintaining the unity of their military and economic power against the outside world, especially against pressure by Germany and Russia.
The “Intermarium” proposal of Józef Pilsudski
The third proposal, the Intermarium concept of Józef Pilsudski appeared in a time when after several centuries of being ruled by empires, the entire region of East Central Europe from Finland to Greece became once again a region fragmented into small states at the end of the First World War, when the German, the Russian and the Austrian empires collapsed at the same time. The first version of the proposal proposed a federation between Belarus, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, planning to virtually reestablish a modernized form of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This would have likely provided sufficient resources so that the four constituent nations would have been able to resist pressure from both Germany and Russia.8 As of 1926, the population of the Soviet Union was 147 million. Out of this however, 29 million people lived in the Ukrainian SSR, and 5 million in the Belorussian SSR.9 Poland’s population in the 1920s was about 27 million people, while Lithuania’s population was 2 million.10 This means, that had the original Intermarium proposal come true, including all of interwar Poland, Lithuania, and the territories that became the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs, this would have meant a population of not less then 63 million. At the same time, the Soviet Union without Ukraine and Belarus, but retaining all other republics would have meant 113 million people. Thus while among the international borders that were formed between Poland and the USSR in the early 1920s, the population of the Soviet Union was five and a half times more than that of
7 Isac, I. N. (2006). The United States of Greater Austria–a step towards European Union. Europe as viewed from the Margins: An East-Central European Perspective During the Long Nineteenth Century. 8 Boyko, V. (2017). Ukrainian Attempts at State Building in 1917–1921 and the Idea of Intermarium: A Historiographical and Archival Note. Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal, (4), 95-100. 9 Всесоюзная перепись населения 1926 года Demoskop Weekly http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/census.php?cy=1 10 Démographie des pays développés https://www.ined.fr/fr/tout-savoir-population/chiffres/bases- donnees/donnees-pays-developpes/
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Poland, had the Intermarum federation been successfully formed, the population of the Soviet Union would have been less than double of that of the Intermarium polity. Being outnumbered by one to two is still disadvantageous, but much less than being outnumbered by one two five, and already a proportion where under equal military technology and skilled leadership, resistance in case of a war has a reasonable chance to be successful. However from the very beginning, status of territories with ethnically mixed populations caused escalating conflicts between the four prospective constituent nations. Vast provinces of mixed Polish-Ukrainian, Polish-Belorussian, and Polish-Lithuanian population lay along the eastern frontier of Poland, with especially numerous Polish populations in Galicia, and in the province around Vilnius. Geographical delimitation was also not clear between Belorussian and Lithuanian majority areas either.11 This would have meant a need for compromise between the prospective constituent nations, this compromise however, was not reached during the regional wars of 1918-1920, and by 1920 Ukraine and Belarus fell under Soviet control.12
During the later interwar years the Intermarium concept was expanded to the entire region between Germany and the Soviet Union, mostly overlapping the present area of the 16+1 and the Three Seas Initiatives. This would have united forces in the region against German and Soviet pressure, and seeked support from other great powers for it. This idea however never became a reality due to conflicts, especially territorial disputes during the interwar period between proposed member states.13
Trends on the issue today
What is common in these proposals is that they all planned to fend off German and Russian pressure by forming some kind of unity among small nations in the region, and they all hoped support from great powers other than Germany and Russia for this. Today the main organization of regional cooperation in the region is the Visegrad group. The Group was founded in 1991 and contains the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia. The group was founded at the Hungarian small town of Visegrád, reaching back to the historical conference of the Kings of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland back in 1335. Although the group has a high
11 Pándi, L., Bárdi, N., & Kasza, K. M. (1995). Köztes-Európa, 1763- 1993:(térképgyűjtemény). Osiris-Századvég. pp 44-45.; pp. 352-355. 12 Romsics, I. (1998). Nemzet, nemzetiség és állam: Kelet-Közép-és Délkelet- Európában a 19. és 20. században. Napvilág. pp. 178-182. 13 Levy, J. (2007). The Intermarium: Wilson, Madison, & East Central European federalism. Universal-Publishers.
7 prestige and a relatively long history, two other organizations have more role in foreign policy regarding regions outside Europe. One of these is the 16+1 initiative, that was founded in 2012 and coordinates relations between China and the region, and the other is the Three Seas Initiative, founded in 2016, that is playing an increasing role in relations with the USA.
From Europe, the 16+1 Initiative includes Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia, and –as well known in OBOR-literature- coordinates their relations with China. The population of the 16 participating European countries is about 118 million. The Initiative was started in 2012, and its’ importance increased significantly after the launching of the Belt and Road Initiative next year, as countries participating in the 16+1 initiative can function as the New Silk Road’s entry points into the EU.
Conclusion
The Three Seas Initiative was founded in 2016. It consists of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The total population of these twelve countries is about 110 million. Its’ aim is to deepen regional cooperation in the region. After Donald Trump attended the annual summit of the group in 2017 in Warsaw, the initiative took a sharp pro-US turn regarding security policy.14 A key project of the Three Seas Initiative had become the construction of liquefied natural gas depots at strategic sea ports in Croatia, Lithuania and Poland, and a network of pipelines providing access to these ports for members of the block. This way countries of the region could gain access to US liquefied gas supplies by sea, thus ease their dependence on natural gas supplies from Russia.
The two organizations, although not involving exactly the same countries, greatly overlap each other. 11 countries are members of both the 16+1 and the Three Seas Initiatives. This overlap is more apparent if we consider the population of the member countries: The population of those eleven countries that are participating in both, is 102 million people, that is about 86% of the population of the 16 European countries involved in the 16+1 Initiative, and more than 92% of the population of the 12 countries participating in the Three Seas Initiative.
14 Wiśniewski, B. (2017). The Three Seas Initiative after the Warsaw Summit: What Next?. The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs, 26(2), 55-64.
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This combination that the Three Seas Initiative focusing on closer cooperation with the US, while the 16+1 initiative is focusing on closer cooperation with China, may seem to be a paradox at first sight. However it all makes sense in the scope of the history of efforts by nations in the region to break or at least loosen their dependence on their two powerful neighbors, Germany and Russia. Rapprochement to both China and the US at the same time can be interpreted as a policy of diversification to decrease dependence on Germany and Russia. The factors, that Germany complained that the 16+1 initiative established ties between China and the 16 countries excluding the EU, while the 16 countries insisted, suggests such a constellation, as de facto for the 16 countries, this means building relations with China in a way that the process is not influenced by Germany, that otherwise has dominant economic influence on these countries. But at the same time this means counterbalancing German economic hegemony without giving space to Russia. What can also be attractive in building economic relations with China, is that as of now, China is not able to project its’ military power anywhere near the region, thus is in a “safe distance”. Same in case of the Three Seas Initiative: While deepening their military cooperation with the USA against Russian pressure, they do it in a way that does not involve Germany. Of course this draws the question, that by these policies, how the countries of east central Europe position themselves in the increasing global rivalry of the US and China? One answer can be that these policies are neither pro-US, nor pro-PRC, but pro East-Central Europe. The centuries old logic of efforts to fend off German and Russian hegemony would suggest granting economic concessions to China as long as it serves as a tool of diversification against German and Russian influence, but not beyond that point, and also most likely only as long as China does not have the capabilities to project its’ military power anywhere near the region. Granting military concessions to the US as long as it serves as a tool against Russian pressure without having to fall under Germany’s influence, but not beyond that point. Economic cooperation with China but not beyond a level where this would jeopardize the military alliance with the USA, military alliance with the USA, but not letting this to limit the freedom to build economic ties with China. The fact that these countries follow two, seemingly contradicting trends of deepening military alliance with the USA and deepening their economic cooperation with China at the same time, suggests such an attitude, an attitude that reaches back to centuries old reflexes characterizing geopolitical thought in the region.
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Bibliography:
Boyko, V. (2017). Ukrainian Attempts at State Building in 1917–1921 and the Idea of Intermarium: A Historiographical and Archival Note. Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal, (4), 95-100.
Всесоюзная перепись населения 1926 года Demoskop Weekly http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/census.php?cy=1 Retrieved 12.09.2018.
Démographie des pays développés https://www.ined.fr/fr/tout-savoir- population/chiffres/bases-donnees/donnees-pays-developpes/ Retrieved, 14.09.2018.
Huntington, S. P., Dóra, P., Mila, G., Györgyi, G., & Attila, A. K. (2008). A civilizációk összecsapása és a világrend átalakulása. Európa.
Isac, I. N. (2006). The United States of Greater Austria–a step towards European Union. Europe as viewed from the Margins: An East-Central European Perspective During the Long Nineteenth Century.
Levy, J. (2007). The Intermarium: Wilson, Madison, & East Central European federalism. Universal-Publishers.
Németh I. (2001). Európa-tervek. Eötvös Kiadó, Budapest.
Pándi, L., Bárdi, N., & Kasza, K. M. (1995). Köztes-Európa, 1763-1993:(térképgyűjtemény). Osiris-Századvég.
Romsics, I. (1998). Nemzet, nemzetiség és állam: Kelet-Közép-és Délkelet-Európában a 19. és 20. században. Napvilág.
Varga E. Á. Erdély magyar népessége 1870–1995 között. Magyar Kisebbség, 331-407.
Wiśniewski, B. (2017). The Three Seas Initiative after the Warsaw Summit: What Next?. The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs, 26(2), 55-64.
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