Flux of China policies in Central Europe: A Comparison on the Czech Republic Slovakia Hungary and Poland

Abstract

Central European countries the so called Visegrad Frour (the Czech Republic Slovakia Hungary Poland) have had good relations with the People?s Republic of China since the fall of the communist regime in 1989 After the cooling down of the relations in the 1990s caused by the change of regime in Central European countries and the reorientation of these countries towards market economy a revival of relations came only after the entry of these states to the EU The new impetus of the relations was marked by the impact of the global economic and financial crisis in 2008 on the region when some countries searched for the financial assistance from China The new form of cooperation was set up as the 16+1 platform with the view to strengthen the Central and Eastern European relations with China in order to attract Chinese investments The other type of cooperation is foreseen under the Belt and Road Initiative where the huge trade exchange with China is promising The main goal of the work is to analyse the impact of political relations of these countries with China on their economic relations and vice versa The political relations included the issues such as the criticism of human rights situation in China the Taiwan diplomacy and support of Tibet Inspite of general belief that more accommodating countries towards China will trade with China more and receive more Chinese investments the main finding of the dissertation reveals that more critical states towards China such as Poland and the Czech Republic have been trading with China more and have been receiving more Chinese investment than the supportive states such as Slovakia and Hungary Exception could be made regarding the Chinese investments where Hungary is the biggest recipient of the Chinese investments in the region Moreover the economic relations influence political relations although; it is hard to prove it The conclusion could me made the politics matter in some degree when it comes to the investments but doesn?t matter than it comes to trade in case of the relations between the Central Europe and China

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Chih-Chieh Chou (Supervisor)