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The allure of doing business with one of the world’s largest economies is massive. Chinese financing, development and infrastructure support have been embraced from Africa to part of Europe. Yet the cost of leaning towards China usually involves a greater geopolitical trade-off, whether compromising national security or a betrayal of fundamental values. As we have seen in previous examples, national security and democracy are compromised in the cooperation with China. The Baltic countries, and the rest of European countries involved should withdraw from the 17+1 initiative in order to facilitate a coherent European strategy to China and preserve the democratic values that we all treasure.
Beijing’s 17+1 format is a forum created by the Chinese government where a number of Central and Eastern European governments are invited to participate in summits to discuss China’s Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects which are designed to facilitate expanded trade routes for China and other related trade issues.
