EFOR monitors Beijing’s influence in Eastern Europe, with a focus on the Black Sea countries, which are usually overlooked. Communist China is less visible than Russia in the region, but it is increasingly present through economic or political action, directly or through the EU. We will quantify this influence in various countries so that our publics understand better the nature of the regime and its interests in our part of Europe.
Projects
What we don’t know about China?
Chinese prosperity is largely state propaganda. The myth of China's effectiveness is beginning to fade. Details about the Chinese population's rights and liberties as well as economic opportunities came to surface in recent years. China …
Chinese communities in Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine
The Chinese community in Romanian was, and probably still is, one of the biggest communities in Eastern Europe, second only to the one present in Hungary. Although the exact number of Chinese in Romania has …
Conference: Eastern Europe and the Republic of China (Taiwan)
June 23 rd 2021, 11:00 CET (17:00 in Taipei; 12:00 in Bucharest) The potential for cooperation between the Eastern Europe/Black Sea countries and the Republic of China (Taiwan) is underexploited and the country’s visibility in our …
Radio talk show about the Chinese at the Black Sea
A discussion with Amy Liu from Texas University and Ovidiu Nahoi from RFI
News on China Watch
How much pressure Beijing is exerting in Bucharest. The China Index Project (II)
We were discussing here yesterday why it is important to understand and measure China's influence in various countries, and why for us in Bucharest it is a priority to understand how it acts in Europe. …
Beijing’s influence in Romania. The China Index Project (I)
For us Europeans, Russia is the storm, but China is climate change, as the head of counterintelligence in Germany said the other day: the former causes short-term disruption, but goes away, while the latter is …
China’s influence in Romania
China’s influence in Romania – and 81 other states: an index with 99 dimensions grouped in 9 sections. Why am I not surprised that the biggest attraction for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Romania …
Cross-border Talks – Sorin Ioniță: China is not interested in investing in Central and Southeastern Europe
Cross-border Talks discussed with Sorin Ioniță from the Romanian liberal NGO Expert Forum about the Chinese presence or rather absence in Central Europe and the Black Sea region. Ioniță explained how the hype in this …
China’s presence in Romania:The hundred flowers that never bloomed
No large, BRI-type strategic project has materialized so far in Romania, but many con-men with political connections tried to exploit the wave of enthusiasm for “Chinese investments” created after 2012. Today, ten years later, the …
Sorin Ioniță: China is not interested in investing in Central and Southeastern Europe
Sorin Ioniţă in Cross-border Talks, with Vladimir Mitev and Veronika Susova-Salminen, a program for the Bulgarian public. We presented the preliminary conclusions of our Chinawatch project: the monitoring of Beijing’s influence at the Black Sea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDldvD86BJ4&ab_channel=Cross-borderTalks
China Watch – August 2022
On April 13th, the Embassy of the People's Republic of China published an official document – Answers of the spokesperson of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Bulgaria to questions related to …
China Watch: Online Monitoring – July
We monitored 23 online news websites in Chinese and English over a time period of seven months. We used Pulsar - media monitoring tool to extract data from these sources and we filtered the content …
China’s growing footprint in the global geopolitical landscape
Thursday, June 23, 6:00 p.m., Cătălin Teniță MP and Expert Forum invite you to an event dedicated to China's growing footprint in the global geopolitical landscape. The event aims to open a dialogue on a number …
China Watch – May 2022
China's narrative of Russia's war against Ukraine. by Andreea Leonte, Parliamentary advisor and a fellow for China studies at The Romanian Institute for the Study of the Asia-Pacific (RISAP). On February 4th, China and Russia issued a …
China Watch – April
CHINA’S REACTION TO THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE Our partner, Leonid Litra, Senior Analyst at New Europe Center published an analysis of China’s reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Without changing the rhetoric …
China Watch – March 2022
Views from the East on Beijing’s influence in the Black Sea region BULGARIA Analysis by the Bulgarian Institute for legal Initiative (BILI) Bulgaria went through a significant political shift of powers in 2021. After more than a decade-long …
China Watch February 2022
Views from the East on Beijing’s influence in the Black Sea region UKRAINE How much risk is China willing to take for the sake of Russia. The coordination between Moscow and Beijing, as viewed from Kyiv by Leonid …
Europe’s Vulnerability to Chinese Propaganda is Homegrown
A new form of Orientalism makes the West susceptible to propaganda narratives from China that ultimately aren’t even primarily intended for them. That Western societies are under pressure from Chinese propaganda is no news at all. …
Key messages in the conference Eastern Europe-Taiwan
Key messages in the conference held on June 23rd 2021 True to their agenda of democracy building, EFOR and its main partner, the Black Sea Trust (BST, a program of the GMF-US), organized a conference to …
In Brief on 9DASHLINE
EFOR meddles in East Asia, in the proverbial China shop: what we as East-Europeans should do in the growing crisis related to Communist China's presence in Europe, and how it would help a lot if we …
The Chinese in the Black Sea Countries
In the last three decades a small Chinese diaspora has emerged in Romania and other countries of Eastern Europe. Who are these people? Amy Liu, a Taiwanese-American from the University of Texas, explains here. Read …
Falling into History
Beijing celebrates next month 100 years of Chinese-style communism. The triumphalism and intensity of propaganda are unprecedented, but the problem is that China's international prestige has diminished seriously, especially in Europe. EFOR's report summarizes the …
Boycott Olimpics
It is not the boycotting of the 2022 Beijing Olympics that would represent "a politicization of sport and the Olympic ideal", but precisely the manner in which dictatorships instrumentalize the sport events for their propaganda …
Orientalism 2.0
Europe’s Vulnerability to Chinese Propaganda is Homegrown A new form of Orientalism makes the West susceptible to propaganda narratives from China that ultimately aren’t even primarily intended for them. That Western societies are under pressure from Chinese …
We asked Josep Borrell, would-be Minister of Foreign Affairs of the EU, about his views on Russia and China
We asked the Catalan mr Josep Borrell, would-be Minister of Foreign Affairs of the EU, about his views on Russia and China. Because we really care about these matters here, in Eastern Europe. No answer …