Serbia vows stronger ties with China despite US pressure

Serbia has expressed its views openly and pledged to deepen cooperation with China after a Washington meeting in early September, which Chinese analysts believe shows US’ wishful thinking of wooing and pressuring Serbia to join its alliance to counter China in fields like 5G is doomed to fail.

In a recent move, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic openly pledged to deepen cooperation with Chinese tech giant Huawei, despite Serbia signing an agreement with Kosovo at the White House in early September in the presence of US President Donald Trump, committing not to use equipment supplied by “untrusted vendors” in their telecommunications networks.

During a meeting with Chinese ambassador to Serbia Chen Bo on September 11, Vucic stressed that Serbia will conduct cooperation with China in fields including telecommunications. Three days later, Huawei opened an innovation and development center in Belgrade in the presence of Ana Brnabic, who said Serbia was cooperating with Huawei on artificial intelligence and education and the center will significantly help further digitalization in Serbia.

These loud and clear voices were made just one week after the Washington agreement, with Chinese experts saying that the agreement was only a halfhearted response to the US, as it was fully aware of US’ attempt to sabotage the friendly relations between China and other countries.

Serbia clearly knew that only Huawei can offer it cost-effective 5G services, and the European Union (EU) will not offer it a replacement given that its accession to EU has not been decided and the US has no better replacement, experts said.