Bulgaria-China Relations in the Context of the Changing World – Challenges and Opportunities
Evgeniy KANDILAROV
The changing world and the geopolitical challenges
At the beginning of the second decade of the XXI century, globally the two major geopolitical players opposing each other are the United States and China. Their interests and actions are crossing in many regions around the world. One of these crossing points is undoubtedly the region of Central and Eastern Europe.
Over the past two decades, China has become a significant economic player on the international stage. This enabled it to become also an important geopolitical power worldwide. At the same time, Europe is a key element of China’s strategy to impose a new model of global governance. The EU is China’s largest trading partner and China is the EU’s second largest trading partner.
The discussion among EU member states about what the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) means for Europe, and what response would be appropriate took quite a long time. Until 2015 there was no official position of the EU toward the issue of the BRI. It was mentioned for the first time in a Resolution of the European Parliament from 16 December 2015, regarding the EU-China relations. In this document the European Parliament stated that since the launch of the BRI aimed at constructing major energy and communication links across Central, West and South Asia, Europe considers the project with a “geostrategic relevance which should be pursued in a multilateral way” and “believes that it is of the utmost importance to develop synergies and projects in full transparency and with the involvement of all stakeholders…”
In July 2016 the “16+1” formula was referred for the first time in an European document (the new EU Strategy on China) as a sub-regional framework for cooperation in the context of connectivity.