Sowing division, reaping cohesion? China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Central and Eastern Europe and the paradox of European reactive integration

This article revisits China’s engagement with Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by taking seriously Beijing’s repeated claim that cooperation with the region would promote balanced development, strengthen China–EU relations, and contribute to European integration. It argues, however, that China did not approach CEE as a coherent regional space but as a differentiated field of bilateral relationships, reconstructed here as four-tiered relationship profiles. These profiles, derived from official diplomatic language, patterns of cooperation, and European response dynamics, reveal a selective strategy that is insufficiently recognised in the literature. Rather than fostering cohesion in China’s favour, this approach often reinforced differentiation. In cases such as Hungary and Serbia, China cultivated politically valuable partnerships that generated visibility but little durable leverage over Europe. In other cases, unmet expectations, security concerns, and coercive pressure triggered resistance, regulatory tightening, and stronger European coordination. The article conceptualises this dynamic as reactive integration: coordination that emerged in response to the asymmetries, dependencies, and coercive effects of China’s engagement, rather than as the intended result of that engagement. China thus contributed to European cohesion only indirectly, unevenly, and often counterproductively.