The study aims to identify patterns of engagement, areas of convergence or tension with European and transatlantic frameworks, and the strategic considerations shaping national and regional responses.
China's four global initiatives have arrived in Southeast Europe at a moment of global reckoning, concurring crises and conflicts in Europe and beyond, and dilemmas pertaining to the region's EU integration trajectory. Their effect on the region’s fundamental alignments remains limited; their more visible role is discursive, providing some actors with alternative vocabularies. Drawing on media and public discourse analysis and expert survey data, this study maps the reception of the four global initiatives (4GI) across nine Southeast European countries through four analytical dimensions: official uptake by state actors, media visibility and circulation, initiative-specific views and perceptions among the expert community, and the contextual elements and structural conditions that enable or constrain deeper engagement. The study argues that the 4GI should be understood as an emerging normative framework entering SEE’s regional setting marked by pre-existing political and institutional gaps, tensions, or unmet demands - some of which may create conditions for selective uptake of China’s initiatives. The significance of 4GI in SEE ultimately lies in their potential for generating an evolving vocabulary that originates in Chinese initiatives but remains open to selective input and reinterpretation by local actors pursuing their own political, economic, or diplomatic objectives; nevertheless, this does not amount to transforming strategic alignments.
The publication was authored by Dr Ana Krstinovska and Zlatko Simonovski from the ESTIMA think tank, Dr Anastas Vangeli from the School of Economics and Business at the University of Ljubljana, and Dr Konstantinos Simonis from Panteion University in Athens.
