Last week, the Romanian government announced that it intends to ban Chinese companies from participating in public infrastructure tenders, which was coincidentally followed by a wave of restrictions for Chinese companies in Central and Eastern Europe. The Czech Republic also aims to ban CGN from taking part in the public tender to build the [...]
In 2020, Andreea Zaharia, associate researcher at RISAP, participated in the pan-European research project Mapping Out EU-South Korea Relations: Key Member States’ Perspectives. The project was implemented by the KF-VUB Korea Chair of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and concluded with a report analyzing the relations between South Korea and 7 EU member states, including Romania. Andreea conducted [...]
More than 70 years ago, when the United States was facing the threat of Soviet Communism, George Kennan advised the U.S. to be the best it can be, in order to attract other countries into the democratic sphere and make democracy the most coveted political system. Today, the United States under Donald Trump seems [...]
In 2013, after the then-16+1 summit in Bucharest, Romania was bombarded with gushing headlines about a dozen Chinese investments and projects that would soon supercharge the Romanian economy, with the Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant as the flagship project. Eight years later and nine governments apart, none of these projects were implemented, while disillusion with [...]
If you ask three experts from the United States, China, and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) about China-CEE relations, you will receive three different answers. While the Chinese might say that relations are very good and the American might say that the Central and Eastern Europe region is in bed with China, the [...]
Romanian and Bulgarian interests have diverged on many occasions throughout history, but their outlooks have recently become more aligned. For one thing, both countries have fostered a competitive dynamic to exploit their advantageous position near the Black Sea, or to join the EU and the Schengen Area. Their narratives regarding China are also [...]
Thirty years of independence from communism and the Soviet Union have also meant 30 years of fear of a Russian invasion for Central and Eastern European countries. As a result, these countries have spent three decades consolidating relations with the United States and NATO — both of which they see as possible saviors in [...]
There is an old myth in Romania that during the communist era, dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu systematically avoided developing infrastructure in the eastern part of the country because he feared a Soviet invasion. Today the tension between connectivity and security is playing out in a different way. The problem of critical infrastructure was highlighted recently [...]
When it was launched by China and 16 countries from Central and Eastern Europe in 2012, the 16+1 mechanism sparked hope throughout the region that it could close the investment gap. The figures being bandied about were huge in 2012. Then-Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced a $10 billion credit line for Chinese investments in Central and [...]
On December 14th, 1948, Romania and India established diplomatic relations. On the eve of the 70th anniversary of this occasion, the Romanian Institute for the Study of the Asia-Pacific (RISAP) and the Romanian Diplomatic Institute (Institutul Diplomatic Român – IDR), with the support of the Embassy of the Republic of India in Romania, organized [...]