Balkans

The sun of China’s might has cast a dragon shadow over Europe. While China’s economic influence in the world has been largely discussed—either in terms of its immediate neighbors in Asia, or in its strained but complementary relations with the US—its European vision has been kept in the dark. Considering the increasing involvement of China in international relations, this paper seeks to answer the following research question: What does the Chinese engagement with Central and Eastern European Countries—such as the one under China-CEEC 17+1 initiative—entail for the European security? To answer the mentioned question, we hypothesize that the involvement of China in the region has negatively affected EU’s efforts to promote policy coherence and to form a common foreign and defense policy, and therefore, the EU has begun securitizing China to limit its influence in the region. Guided by these objectives, this study employs a qualitative research design using official EU and Chinese policy reports and statistics. Given the security dimension of China’s involvement in Europe, Buzan’s Regional Security Complex theory was adopted as the study’s conceptual framework. The research findings suggest that China (through China-CEEC cooperation) has enjoyed direct access to sensitive-security sectors, and differences over the direction of EU project have exacerbated the EU’s difficulty to mount a coherent response.

The Balkans, in a specific sense, refers to the collection of countries in Southeast Europe that gained independence following the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, most of which are on the path to membership in the European Union. The Balkans, with its great ethnic diversity, is the intersection of three religions: Islam, Catholic Christianity, and Orthodox Christianity, and regarding its historical background, it is considered a crisis-prone area next to the European Union. Iran has long-standing deep cultural ties with the countries of this region, and the Persian language has historically held significant appeal among the intellectuals of this area. However, undoubtedly, Iran's presence and role in the Bosnian crisis during the 1990s is considered the most significant involvement of Iran in this part of Europe. The present study aims to explore the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Balkans region, emphasizing Iran's role in Bosnia. The results indicated that the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Balkans is consistent with the constructivist approach in international relations, and this region possesses considerable potential in cultural, political, and economic fields for the development of relations.