Voice for CHOICE #13: Examining China's CEE Investment Aims with Ágnes Szunomár

Via the 16+1 platform, the Belt and Road, the Digital Silk Road, and more, there is no shortage of Chinese investment initiatives touching the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. This includes infrastructure projects dotting the Western Balkans, data centers in Hungary, and significant FDI directed at strategically important EU nations like Poland. Over their life span, these investments have been met with both adulation and excoriation.  Indeed, many of the projects that were once welcomed as life-saving investments, adding to much needed FDI inflows in the wake of the Great Recession and European debt crisis. Yet, especially as investment is wielded as a coercive instrument, many European partners are now increasingly skeptical of Chinese investment, especially in light of the political price tags now clearly attached. As such, assessing China's incentives and aims for investment in the CEE region are of paramount importance. That task will be tackled in the latest Voice for CHOICE podcast. Make the right CHOICE and tune in! This month's guest: Ágnes Szunomár, Head of the Research Group on Development Economics at the Institute of World Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungary Show notes: China Pulls the Economic Coercion Card Against Lithuania Central Europe for Sale: The Politics of China's Influence Montenegro’s Debt Success Orphaned at Birth China’s Sticks and Carrots in Central Europe: The Logic and Power of Chinese Influence