Centre for EU-Asia Relations

Publications by the Centre

Conference „What Future for EU-Central Asia Relations?"

The conference took place on 14th and 15th November in Brussels and our resarcher Dr. Alica Kizková moderated a panel discussion there called „More and better connectivity between Europe and Asia – what could that mean for Central Asia in practice?“ The panel supported the EU initiative to better the dialogue with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekhistan and Turkmenistan as well as Afghanistan and with other coutries operating in the region like US, India, Japan or South Korea. It is necessary for EU member states to proactivly coordinate their activities with the goal of the EU, be it through embassies, chambers of commerce or culture centers.

The European Union in Central Asia: Balancing Competing Actors and Opportunities for the V4 Countries

Dr. Alica Kizeková, researcher at the IIR, published a policy paper within the framework of a platform Think Visegrad, which deals with the strategy of European Union in Middle East and the opportunities for the states of Visegrád Group.

Raisina debates: India’s engagements with Central Europe: Historical links, shared values and global objectives

Modern-day India deals with the independent Czech and Slovak republics, where bilateral relations are friendly, genuine and positive. The leaders built these bilateral ties on historical experiences and interactions as well as shared values. The countries aim for peace, stability, democracy, freedom and rule of law. (Alica Kizeková)

PyeongChang OG: An Opening for a “Moon-shine” Policy?

Article written by Markéta Bajgerová for Mezinárodní politika: Whether one believes that the impulse was the series of ballistic missile tests or Donald Trump’s assumption of the US presidency with its reintroduction of the “axis of evil” doctrine, the reality is that the breaking news of the World media channels have recently revolved around yet another ‘nuclear crisis’ on the Korean Peninsula. (Markéta Bajgerová)

The Czech Republic: Receiving the First Relevant Chinese Investments

Chapter by Rüdolf Fürst in the new ETNC "Chinese Investment in Europe": Chinese acquisitions and investments in the Czech Republic have increased markedly in the last two years, and are expected to continue on this new trend. The privately-owned, Shanghai-based China Energy Company Limited (CEFC), which chose Prague as the center of its European operations, has proven to be the most prominent investor, notably in the financial and tourism sectors. Others, such as the state-owned rail giant CRRC, are also showing significant interest in Czech assets. The Czech Republic’s position benefits from its geographical location, industrial tradition and subcontracting production network with the EU states, mainly with Germany, which has made Czechia the largest per capita receiver of overall FDI in post-communist Europe. While China has historically played only a small part in this, the country is currently upgrading its attractiveness, particularly through the proactive support of Czech political and lobby groups for Chinese economic activities. At the same time, the Czech media and broad public uphold their suspicious and hostile view of a rising China and its objectives in Europe. (Rudolf Fürst).

Chinese Assertiveness in the South China Sea

New book by our Associate Researcher Richard Q. Turcsányi published by prestigious publishing house Springer! It offers an assessment of China’s assertive foreign policy behavior with a special focus on Chinese policies in the South China Sea (SCS). By providing a detailed account of the events in the SCS and by analyzing power dynamics in the region, it identifies the driving forces behind China’s assertive foreign policy. Considering China’s power on a domestic as well as an international level, it examines a number of different sources of hard and soft power, including military, economics, geopolitics, and domestic legitimacy. (Richard Q. Turcsányi)

The Visegrad Countries' Political Relations with China: Goals, Results and Prospects

The relevance of individual Visegrad countries in Beijing’s foreign policyshows significant stereotype: they are traditionally viewed as small countries.This opinion did not vanish despite the declarative importance of 16+1relations and the V4-China cooperative formats on the side of China. Eventhough the V4 countries show the high potential for trade and investmentsamong the 16 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, there has beena minimal annual increase of the economic statistics since 2011/2012. (Richard Q. Turcsányi, Tamás Matura, Rudolf Fürst)

Czech-China relations: Accelerated ice melting (pg.15)

The Czech Republic’s relations with China generally follow the mainstream, economy-focused approach of other European states, but high-level political ties with Beijing were relatively low profile until only two years ago. The reason for this was China’s reaction to the Czech Republic’s assertive human rights policy, which began after the breakup of the communist regime in 1989. Because the Czech Republic is a small country, which is not important in China’s Europe strategy, and which has already hosted the Dalai Lama eleven times, it has received the kind of cold reception from China that one would expect. (Rudolf Fürst)

The Czech Republic: New strategic partnership with China with little real OBOR touch (pg.12)

The Czech Republic’s bilateral relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) recently experienced the biggest improvement within the whole EU 28 since 2013, when pro-China former Prime Minister Miloš Zeman was elected president. From the Czech perspective, this improvement is not directly connected to the Chinese ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy, or any specific OBOR-related multilateral project. From the Chinese view, however, Czech rhetorical support for OBOR is an important element of bilateral diplomatic dealings, and some of China’s engagement on the ground is framed ‘in OBOR terms’. (Rudolf Fürst)