Campaign in Serbia for statue of Comrade Xi is a bid to thank China for vaccines and investment

Belgrade praised Xi Jinping a year ago when China first sent critical medical aid during the pandemic, then Serbia imported 3.7 million Sinopharm doses

What will cosying up to China mean for Serbia’s bid for EU membership?

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Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping on a visit to Beijing in 2017. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 4:23pm, 26 May 2021Updated: 5:39pm, 26 May 2021

First came billions of dollars of investment, then millions of doses of vaccines. Now there’s a campaign for Serbia to thank China in a way that harks back to a bygone era: by building a statue to “Comrade Xi”.

The proposal for a monument of China’s President Xi Jinping comes from the fringe New Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which has paid for billboards in Belgrade to rally support for the tribute to the Chinese president to be put up in a local park. While the government has not said if it backs the idea, there’s little doubt that Serbia has gravitated more towards the East than the West during the coronavirus pandemic.

Serbia, along with European Union member Hungary, shot ahead of much of the continent in inoculating its populations after directly buying vaccines from China when the programme orchestrated by Brussels was floundering. That was also as leadership in Belgrade and Budapest continued to court China’s soft power.

In Belgrade, a new US$55 million Chinese Cultural Centre is being finished on the site of the former Chinese embassy destroyed by Nato missiles in 1999 when the military alliance intervened to stop Serbia’s crackdown in Kosovo. The sprawling facility will feature conference rooms and exhibition halls.

Hungary, meanwhile, plans to donate land for a Chinese university campus in Budapest despite objections from the city’s mayor and criticism within the EU over closer ties with Beijing. Budapest and Belgrade are now also going to be connected by a new rail link financed by Chinese loans and built by Chinese companies.

The friendship has particularly worked out for Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. China has invested in Serbia’s sole steelmaker, bought by the country’s HBIS Group, and the biggest copper and gold miner, now controlled by Zijin Mining. Together with contracts awarded to Chinese builders redeveloping Serbia’s infrastructure, investments exceed US$8 billion.

The government praised Xi effusively a year ago when China first sent critical medical aid, including hospital ventilators. Serbia then imported 3.7 million Sinopharm vaccines, accounting for almost 70 per cent of doses so far. Serbia has fully vaccinated about 27 per cent of its population compared with an average 15 per cent in the EU, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker.