#11 IVANA KARÁSKOVÁ: 17+1 China-CEE Cooperation - Vehicle of Influence, Empty Shell, or Multifaceted Network?

EU-China Podcast

In today’s episode, we take a look at the 17+1 China-Central and Eastern Europe cooperation, evaluate its political and economic substance, and investigate how it ties into wider EU-China relations.

Ivana Karásková is a China Research Fellow and a Project Coordinator at the Prague-based Association for International Affairs (AMO) and the coordinator of the China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe (CHOICE), a collaborative international platform bringing together China experts from 17 CEE countries. She also coordinates MapInfluenCE project aimed at tracking China’s influence in Central Europe, specifically Czechia, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. Recently she led a group of 10 researchers from Central and Eastern and European countries to carry out an audit of 17+1 and evaluate how active or inactive the framework really is. The audit resulted in a report under a telling title “Empty shell no more: China’s growing footprint in Central and Eastern Europe”. You can find it on our website.