Vujinovic: By signing the statements in Beijing, Serbia Is aligning itself with a New World Order

Security studies researcher Nikola Vujinovic says that the most significant outcomes of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s visit to China are the two signed statements — the first concerning the Community with a Shared Future, a new initiative China is developing bilaterally with countries around the world, with Serbia among its first signatories, thereby deepening the strategic partnership between the two countries; and the second, a joint statement supporting China’s global initiatives on international justice, integrity, and security.

According to Vujinovic, this essentially amounts to Serbia aligning itself with a new global order.

“With its four global initiatives, China seeks to launch a new order, and this is clearly the outcome of all the visits to Beijing since December — Macron, Starmer, Merz, Trump, Putin, and now President Vucic. It is evident that Xi Jinping has a vision for how he wants to reshape the global order. I believe that is the key positive message emerging from China, in addition to the 23 agreements signed on various topics and the investments, whose regional distribution I particularly appreciate, because not all of them will be concentrated in major centers. Smaller cities will also receive high-tech factories, which is extremely important,” Vujinović told Kosovo Online.

The declarations and statements signed during the Serbian president’s visit to Beijing, he added, provide Serbia with certainty that all Chinese investments already present in the country, as well as the newly signed investments worth 953 million euros, will not remain merely dead letter on paper.

“That is the crucial point. China certainly will not throw away those billions. Approximately seven billion euros in current investments in Serbia, together with this additional nearly one billion, represent a truly substantial amount. The signing of these agreements gives substantive meaning to the phrase ‘iron-clad friendship.’ We constantly hear about this iron-clad friendship, and I would say that after this five-day visit we will understand very well what it actually means, especially once we see the substance of those statements. I am convinced that they are generally diplomatic in tone, but they clearly indicate that China is prepared to engage more strongly in Europe through Serbia,” Vujinovic assessed.

He added that Europe and the United States did not receive the Serbian president’s visit to China in the manner one might have expected, at least judging by the visible reactions, and that this presents a major challenge for Belgrade.

“In the coming period, Serbia will have to engage diplomatically with all those countries and explain what our signing of various statements and agreements with China actually means. But this also places a new task before China itself. If it truly wishes to become the bearer of a new world order or the driving force behind changes in the international system, it will have to act much more concretely on the ground than it does now. In all these major ongoing conflicts, China has refrained from taking sides or issuing condemnations. It calls for peace and justice. The moment is coming when I would like the Western Balkans region to become the place where China demonstrates a stronger role in international relations and assumes the position that many predict for it — that of the world’s most powerful global force,” the interlocutor concluded.