New developments of the China-Central and Eastern European Countries' cooperation and their implications for the Baltic region

ENThe year of 2019 is a very special year for the cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European countries (China-CEEC cooperation). It is not only a year for a historic overall review of bilateral relationships in the course of the last seven decades but also a year for planning and prospecting the cooperation in an uncertain future full of opportunities and challenges. Firstly, the year of 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relationships between China and several countries in Central and Eastern Europe. For the new-born China, these diplomatic relationships established right after its founding once made a great contribution to China's return back to the world's stage. Today, when the Peoples' Republic of China is celebrating its great achievements in the diplomatic domain, bilateral relationships between China and CEECs seem more valuable, since they represent the starting point of Chinese diplomacy. Moreover, the value of these bilateral relationships is not only a historical one. Instead, they have also played an important role in motivating the creation of China- CEEC cooperation mechanism (originally also referred to as "16+1", since 2019 - "17+1"), and created an even more solid historical dimension for this new format of cooperation. [...].