Ongoing Belt and Road Initiative Poses Strategic Risks in the Western Balkans
The article analyzes how China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Western Balkans has created strategic risks through embedded Chinese technology in critical infrastructure. While BRI investments have brought infrastructure development, they have also tied recipient countries to Chinese surveillance and telecommunications equipment from blacklisted firms like Huawei and Dahua. The Washington Agreement (2021) between Serbia and Kosovo explicitly banned untrusted 5G vendors. Telekom Srbija Group, under Western conditional loans, chose Ericsson and Nokia over Huawei for 5G rollout, leading to retaliatory cyberattacks by Russian hackers. China continues to deepen ties, opening an Innovations and Development Centre in Belgrade and installing over 1,000 surveillance cameras under the 'Safe Society' project. The article argues that Balkan states' strategic ambiguity between East and West is becoming unsustainable, forcing them to choose between Western security-driven technology and Eastern technology with privacy risks, amid hybrid warfare threats.
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