The Serbian plant is economically irrelevant in the short term to China, which abounds with steel production at home. But the deal saved 5,200 local jobs and gained Serbia’s political favour.

“It seems to me that everything China has been doing in the past several years in the field of its investments abroad also has a political background and connotation,” said Mijat Lakicevic, a Serbian political and economy analyst.

“China doesn’t really need the Serbian plant that produces practically nothing compared to the steel production in China,” he said. “So, I would describe this as placing a foot in the doorway in order to enter the market and the area where Russia and America are already present.”

The most high-profile effort in this direction is the ambitious US$900 billion “Belt and Road” project, often referred to as the New Silk Road — a transport and trade corridor running from China to Germany, via Greek ports, the Balkans and Central Europe.

Annual investment by Chinese companies in Europe reached an all-time high of US$18 billion in 2014, with annual inflows averaging US$10 billion over the past four years, according to the Rhodium Group, a China investment monitor.

Beijing is encouraging its industries to diversify abroad in hopes of reducing China’s reliance on exports and its domestic market. That has also led to a string of acquisitions in chemicals, tourism, insurance, banking and other industries.

Steel producers have an extra incentive because Beijing is trying to shrink its bloated state-dominated industry at home. China’s production glut has led to a flood of low-priced exports, which has depressed global markets and cost jobs in the US and Europe, raising political tensions. As China negotiates the issue with the US and EU, its acquisition of the Serbian plant gets it some rare good headlines in which it is credited with saving, not destroying, jobs.

Chinese companies are also starting to make inroads into Eastern European construction and engineering markets, including plans to build a US$2 billion high-speed rail line from the Serbian capital, Belgrade, to Budapest in neighbouring Hungary.

And while the EU remains the Western Balkans’ largest trading partner, local governments have sometimes looked with favour to countries like China that are willing to invest large amounts without raising concerns about the region’s patchy record on human rights or media freedoms.

“Serbia has an important role in China’s global Belt and Road project and we want to capitalise on all its potential,” Serbian construction minister Zorana Mihajlovic said. “This project cannot be realised without developed infrastructure in the countries where it passes.”

She said that China has so far loaned some 5.5 billion euros in Serbia for the construction of bridges, highways and railroads that it plans to use as transport routes for its goods into the heart of Europe.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has often been criticised by Western European leaders as being authoritarian, has often expressed his admiration for the economic achievements of countries like China. He wants to make Hungary the main hub for Chinese business and investments in central and Eastern Europe.

“The old model for globalisation has become obsolete,” Orban said in May in Beijing while taking part in a Belt and Road conference. “The engine room of the global economy is no longer in the West, but in the East.”

In Smederevo, the town of some 100,000 people where thousands make a living from the steel plant, there was praise for China.

Salaries are about 25 per cent below what they were under the US company – roughly 750 euros compared with 1,000 euros, but mayor Jasna Avramovic said it was important that the jobs had returned in the first place.

“It’s been one year since the Chinese came to our town and a calmer atmosphere is visible,” Avramovic said. “There is no more uncertainty over what will happen with the plant. The salaries come on time.”