Serbia-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership — the Foreign Policy Paradigm of the “New Silk Road”

 In contemporary international relations, the mutual relations between Serbia and China are conditioned by numerous factors of political, economic, social and cultural nature. While these factors realistically indicate the disparity between the two countries in many respects, this should not be a serious obstacle for them to develop good and friendly relations in many fields. The primary reason is that, in the historical and international legal context, the relations between the two countries are characterized by a certain continuity, which is manifested in the gradual development of diplomatic relations established in 1955, between the former Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia and the People’s Republic of China. As one of the successor states to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia continues to treat China as one of its most important partners in international relations. Serbia demonstrates such a foreign policy approach through the course, according to which China is one of the main “pillars” of its foreign policy with the European Union, Russia and the United States. By mentioning its main “pillars”, in its foreign policy orientation, Serbia actually wants to emphasize that China represents for it a key player in world politics and a great power with which it builds relations of “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” (CSP). The deepening of Serbian-Chinese relations at the bilateral and multilateral levels (especially in the UN, regional international organizations and political fora, such as the “17 + 1” cooperation mechanism between China and Central, Eastern and Southeast European countries), hence, it is in some way a consequence of accelerated global economic developments, largely conditioned by “China’s New Silk Road” strategy and tactics framed through the “One Belt, One Road” Initiative (OBOR), which realistically represent a new paradigm of international relations based on the idea on peaceful and harmonious world development.

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