China's New Silk Road -
Beijing's multi-billion-dollar ‘Belt and Road’ initiative
extending right into Europe. This first section from New
Belgrade to Stara Pasova and the third section from
Novi Sad to Subotica are all constructed
by China Railway. China aims to get its goods
across Europe by train — and south-eastern and eastern
European nations are vital to that
strategy. They'll enable the
transportation of goods to western Europe via a
single rail corridor. For southeastern
Europe in particular, the New Silk Road
project beckons with promises of new
investment. For us the Chinese have come
like a gift from Heaven. But China brings more than
cutting edge-technology — it's also prepared
to invest in older, environmentally
harmful processes. Cancer is a really
horrible disease. All of us know
what we're in for. It's a region torn between
its loyalty to Europe, and the opportunities
that China offers. It would be easy to convince
our politicians not to get funds from the Chinese
for such projects if there was a serious attempt
by Europe to help us in the transition towards
de-carbonization. This is no children's
model toy railway. Welcome to the exhibition
room for the project of Hungarian and Serbian High Speed
Railway in the territory of Serbia. Please
follow me. Yu Hui is an engineer overseeing
the Belgrade to Budapest route. At the China Railway
headquarters, visitors are shown
Serbia's showcase model. The Beijing-based engineer has
travelled practically all over the world for the
New Silk Road project. For me it hasn't been
too much of a challenge because I was already doing a
lot of international projects, not only in
Pakistan. I was in Egypt and
I was in Iran. Argentina
too. Political questions
are off the table — we’re only permitted to ask about
the technical side of the project. The Chinese government
vets all communication. The aim: to tell a
success story — China can build rail routes
everywhere, including in Europe. From an engineerś perspective,
this is not a difficult thing. It is a reconstruction
project. It is a reconstruction
project. So we have a lot of
experience in that. So when this railway
line is completed, the travel time from New
Belgrade station to Budapest will be shortened
to three hours. In recent years, Serbia
has blossomed into China's most-favored
Balkan partner. Beijing has granted ten billion
euros worth of loans to Serbia, more than to any other
country in the region. But the New Silk Road project has
created hardly any jobs here. Even the construction
is largely being done by a
Chinese workforce. That’s been a typical feature of
the Belt and Road initiative. China imports its own
builders, stationing them in the host country for
months at a time — just as now,
in Serbia. Investment from China began
flowing as early as 2011, when a Chinese consortium
built the Pupin Bridge across the Danube at a
cost of 175 million euros. It became the symbol of
Sino-Serbian friendship. Most Serbs view the flow of cash
from China as a good thing — even if the money
is only borrowed. The loans from Chinese state
banks are quick and cheap. The construction
projects are headed and carried out by
Chinese firms, with even materials and
machines 'Made In China'. Serbia's chamber of commerce
says it's still a good deal. We need
railways. We need good modern
railways where we dont only have
passenger trains, but also good
cargo potential. There is no hidden
agenda with railways. But Marko Čadež is also
aware that Beijing's chief aim with the rail
network is to get goods from China to consumers
in the west. Chinaś initiative is
especially good in Serbia, because itś about
infrastructure. Itś about how fast you are able to
really proceed with the projects. These are all
complicated projects. And for China, Serbia is
part of their initiative, Serbia is geographically
there, where it is. And as such, it
is important. I think the most important
aspect of this relation is that we are on the way
from China logistically to the biggest market of 500
million people in the EU. Serbia's friendship with China
is a much-celebrated one. Xi Jingping and other high-ranking
Chinese officials are popular guests in Serbia,
as evident during this state visit to
Belgrade in 2016. Serbia holds an important
strategic position with a visible regional advantage
and it will surely play an important
role in this. This is a big day for all of
Serbia, for all its citizens. Over the past decade, Chinese money
has flowed into in highways, bridges and security
technology. A Serbian copper mine
and a steel works have also received
Chinese funding. Now the next project
is on the table — Belgrade’s
metro system. And the Chinese
want to build it. Serbian opposition
politician Marinika Tepić is
critical of the plans. She says there were
no public tenders, and believes corruption
is involved. What alerted us was the
drastic difference in estimated cost for building
the Belgrade subway. In the initial contract with a
French firm almost ten years ago, the quoted cost was
2.2 billion euros. Then, President Aleksandar
Vučić suddenly turned up with a Chinese partner and
the cost had doubled. Now they've said it'll
cost 4.4 billion euros. Tepić is a tireless critic of the
close ties between Serbia and China. She says that the
back-room deals often come with strings
attached — and there's little
transparency. And Belgrade's cosying-up to
China is a strategic mistake — Serbia's natural ally,
she says, is Europe. I'm sure that no one here has a
problem with foreign investment. But we do have a problem when
the dealings are corrupt, when far more money is
spent than should be, when we have no idea of how
that money's being spent. The Chinese firms are
all being handled with kid gloves because they're
protected under a bilateral two-state
agreement. You can't even get
into their factories. The Serbian government
prefers not to comment on
the matter. It seems content to close
ranks with China — especially when there's
chance of a photo-op. In 2019, Chinese police
officers took to the streets of
central Belgrade, to go on patrol with their
Serbian counterparts. Ostensibly meant as a nod
to the growing numbers of Chinese visitors to the
country, it also sent a signal: China is looking out for the
security of its smaller ally Serbia. That the same year, thousands
of surveillance cameras suddenly turned up
in central Belgrade. They'd been supplied by the
Chinese telecoms giant Huawei under an initiative to
‘make the city safe' for its 1.3 million
residents. Being observed all
the time and not being able to be at
least authentic. That's something that affects
your personal self-development. And needless to say, it
also affects one's dignity. Since the cameras
were installed, activists like Nevena
Ružić have been trying to find out more about
the deal with China. But Belgrade
remains silent — for reasons of
security, it says. You see the round one,
that's like a ball. It can go around and it is used for
counting objects including people, and also for facial
recognition. They all have facial recognition
technology embedded. The cameras were installed
practically overnight — and without any statistical
evidence of a rise in crime. Nevena Ruzić
is sceptical: What is missing in the whole
timeline of those hundreds, thousands of cameras, is a
public debate on why we need it, why the security sector is of
the opinion we really need it, and what is the
counter argument. So, we never
debated. There was no deliberation
in the parliament or in the public or among
the experts or at least accessible to the public to
understand why we need it. The surveillance technology
is just one part of Serbia's cooperation
with Huawei. The telecoms giant plans
to open a regional innovation center
in Belgrade — aimed at promoting
digitalization in the finance, education and
energy sectors. China is one of
those countries, they do not recognize privacy
as a core human right. And the comprehension of the right
of privacy itself is not the same. So, for that reason, this is
this is always questionable whether we share information
of such sensitive nature with such companies, needless
to say, trans-border data. We asked the Serbian
police for an interview — and got
no reply. However, they did tell the
activist group that the facial recognition
function was not in use. Nevena Ružić and her
group have mapped more than one
thousand cameras. These are
the ones. They are usually
put around. The aim is to alert people to
the presence of the cameras. And although data privacy isn't
a hot-button issue here, it could hinder Serbia's
attempts to join the EU if the cameras are found to
violate data protection laws. So ... just why is the
friendship between Serbia and China held
in such high esteem? Pro-government journalist
Milomir Marić has a talk-show covering national
and international issues — among them
China. And his view of the EU is
increasingly critical: I belong to the generation that
dreamt the American dream. As a young man I dreamed of
joining the European Union, but I doubt I'll see it
happen in my lifetime. Serbia has been in accession
talks with the EU since 2014 — but its ambitions of joining the
bloc are still just distant. According to the
talk-show host, this disillusionment has
spurred the government to look around for
other partners. The Chinese have built
us the bridges and roads that the Europeans
weren't interested in. For us the Chinese have come
like a gift from Heaven. They gave us loans but
also did most of the work. And while the EU keeps up its
demands for a host of reforms, China's loans come with
no strings attached. It's message: democracy isn't a
prerequisite for economic growth. China invests much
more in many other European countries and
NATO members than Serbia. Chinese goods are coming
in via ports in the north. Duisburg, Hamburg
and Rotterdam. They all live from
imports from China, but it's obvious that the
countries that profit from Chinese goods are worried
about the competition when the southern
route is finished, and when goods can
also be imported through the Greek
port of Piraeus, via Serbia
or Italy. That's what's upsetting
the competition — not that Chinese
investment is dangerous. That's a view shared by
the Serbian government, who says it has a 'friendship
of steel' with China. Since the start of the coronavirus
pandemic in early 2020, cooperation has
expanded even more. But despite that, the
European Union remains Serbia's biggest
financial backer. Serbia is on
the fence — trying to maximize its
gains from both sides. When Chinese aid arrived in
Serbia during the pandemic, Beijing put on as much
political spin as possible. Between the lines, the
message was clear: China's success in combatting
the virus reflected the strengths of the
Chinese system. What it failed to mention
was that the EU had paid to transport the aid
from China to Serbia. As always our government's
emphasis was on the Chinese aid. They really
went overboard. And the aid from the
European Union only got mentioned in passing,
and I reckon that only happened because of
public pressure and pressure from
the EU itself. Fifty kilometers
from Belgrade — the Belgrade-Budapest
line passes close by a nature
conservation area. Environmentalist Marko Ljubičić
is a regular visitor to the wetlands, where he comes to
spot species of rare birds. Wetlands are important
for many reasons. One of the reasons is
accumulation of the water because you know that the Danube is
making good all around the world. His level of water
is changing. So if wetlands do not exist
and then Danube gets higher, it could make some
big problems for the local cities and villages
that are near the Danube. Ljubičić works for the Gorani
nature conservation group on the banks
of the Danube. He takes local kids on
excursions to the wetlands to teach them about
biological diversity and the importance
of nature. He's worried about what
the railway line's construction will
mean for the area. A lot of swamps and a
lot of wetlands will be destroyed by putting sand
for the construction of the railway station and
all the birds and the living structure
and plants — they will need to find
other places to live. That’s the biggest problem
the railway station makes. Marko Ljubičić lives and
works in Sremski Karlovci, a town of around eight thousand
right on the Danube River. But soon the town will be separated
from the river by the track. Then people will have to take an
underpass to reach the Danube. Several locals
started a petition, but they couldn't influence
the planning that were already underway
for the railway line. The plans had been
signed-off on without any local input or democratic
participation process. The trains probably
will be better. The railway
will be better. But to be honest, I dont
see the full potential of constructing for
the local people. Sremski Karlovci will
get nothing out of it. The metastasis had
already spread. It happened
very quickly. We went to the
doctor together. She told us my father
should stay in the hospital overnight so that they could
examine the findings. When I came back
the next morning, I could already see he
wasn't doing well at all. He died just 30 days later,
because metastatic cancer spreads really fast and gets into
the bloodstream really fast. Goran Stojak lost his father
to lung cancer in 2016. If you talk to people
in Tuzla, you'll hear similar stories
over and over again. For a long time, Goran
Stojak thought he and his family were
the exception. We were surprised, because
we thought it was a mistake. He never had any complaints,
he was never sick. We were shocked
but we knew what was happening with
the neighbors. You could hear them groaning
and gasping for air. It's one of the most
horrible diseases there is. You have to fight
to breathe. It's All Saints Day, and people
are mourning their dead. Few cities in
Europe have a worse air quality than the
Bosnian city Tuzla. During the winter
months especially, particulate matter
and sulfur dioxide levels exceed EU limits
for weeks at a time. The poor air quality
is making people sick. But only few actually
complain about it. Goran Stojak says his father's
death was a wakeup call. There's nothing
nice here. Someone is
always sick. Everyone is being gradually
poisoned and dying out. Only a few people here
die a natural death. Ninety percent of people
die of cancer and almost all of them die
before their time. Wherever in their body
they’re most vulnerable, that’s where the
cancer attacks. Tuzla's air pollution is produced by
vehicle and industrial emissions, old residential heating systems and
decrepit coal-fired power plants. The bottom line is: coal
power is the problem. Sixty percent of Bosnia's total
energy is still produced from coal. And there are no plans to
change that anytime soon. A new coal-fired power
plant is being built — with help from
Chinese loans. Now we're in front of the
actual construction site of what will be Block 7
of Tuzla power-plant. On the right, you can
see the old one, which has stood here
since around 1964. They claim that the new
one is going to replace the old blocks 3 and
4 and probably 5. You can see the
trucks working there. This is, as they call it,
the preparatory phase, which is done by the
local companies. And they're actually
preparing the construction site for
the Chinese workers. Denis Žiško has campaigned against
pollution here for years. Bosnia Herzegovina's continued
reliance on coal angers him as does the deal
with the Chinese — all it means for Bosnians
is more bad air. The new Block 7 of Tuzla's
power plant is being funded largely by
money from China. China's Exim Bank has
put up more than 600 million euros in loans
to the Bosnian state. I know for a fact that
this is something which is going to cost the people
of Bosnia and Herzegovina lots of money and lots
of lost years of life, because if they build
it, it will continue to work for another 40
years and continue to pollute for
another 40 years. While the European Commission
pushes ahead with its phase-out of coal power,
would-be EU member Bosnia Herzegovina
isn't giving it up. Welcome news
for China, which is also using the
New Silk Road project to advance its supposedly
‘clean coal technology’. China says the Tuzla 7 block
will meet all EU standards. In Tuzla the deal with China
is being hailed as a success. The power plant is the biggest
employer here by far. In the negotiations and
preparatory phase of this deal the Chinese showed a high
level of professionalism. Block 7 isn't their
first project. They've been present in
Serbia for a long time. The Chinese who we
were involved with knew our culture
and our country. They were familiar with the
economic and social situation here. They assured us that they would
be able carry out these projects, and they had
references. It might look
inviting — but these waters are awash
with highly toxic chemicals. They're the waste product
of the power plant, a few kilometers
away. The waste is disposed of in
the surrounding environment and left to seep into
the groundwater. Denis Žiško and his team
have complained for years that there are no environmental
standards when it comes to getting rid of the waste
produced by the power plant. That’s also the case for the new
Chinese block under construction. Itś basically killing
people and nature. There are no proper
prevention measures stopping this water from penetrating and
poisoning the underground water. There are no
prevention measures. Once the surface dries
out in the summer, the wind just picks
up the dust and takes it even to the
center of town. Žiško is angry that the
Bosnian government signed the deal
with the Chinese. He doesn't hold the Chinese
investors responsible, though — he sees his own government
as largely to blame. There is a
market. Our politicians are interested in
doing building coal power plants, and China is the only one willing
to provide loans for such projects. When we had meetings in
the Chinese embassy, let's say, five, six years ago,
we asked the same question, why? Why are you providing loans for
coal and not for renewables, for wind, for solar,
for whatever — because they produce
everything. And the answer
was very simple. It's your authorities
who are asking us loans for this type
of technology. If they asked for
wind or for solar, we would be more than happy
to provide that too. Denis Žiško has
invited politicians, energy policy experts and
concerned citizens to a round table meeting near the
power plant this evening. The big question: how
should the surrounding towns and cities deal with
the power plant waste — the ash,
the dust — for the next
40 years? The green oases between
Tuzla and the town of Lukavac are terribly
polluted, by industry but also by private household
with their own heating systems and
by traffic emissions. We just shouldn't be
destroying even more nature in our region, by turning it
into a dumping site for ash. Residents here are
no longer willing to accept the waste on
their doorsteps. Goran Stojak also hopes to
raise the pressure on the politicians and force
them to take action. I understand people who
work in the energy sector. Their whole business model rests
on Block 7 being built now. And undoing all
of that now — that wouldn’t
be easy. Even so, Denis Žiško
has managed to get the issue
onto the agenda. And the local politicians
have agreed to try to find a different disposal site
for the power plant waste — a site far enough
away to spare Tuzla. Edin Delić is the mayor of Lukavac,
the town right next to Tuzla. It's election
campaign time, and Delić and his supporters
are cleaning near the river. The politician says the new
Tuzla Block 7 guarantees no one need worry they'll
have to go without energy. Our economy as it is now depends
very much on the energy sector. So right now we have an
existing thermal power plant, which will be shut down
in the next five years. So in order to ensure the
continuation of energy, we need to replace these old
blocks with Block Seven. And it's also important to
consider that investing in building Block Seven
will rapidly increase environmental protection
in this area, even while the same levels of
energy are being produced. The argument is that a modern
coal-fired power plant will help protect
the environment. And the shift away from
coal to renewables is just not affordable
at the moment. For Bosnia Herzegovina, one of
Europe's poorest countries, investment from China
means opportunities. If you don't mind, I'll be
very open and very direct. We are thankful to everybody
who supports or invests here. It doesn't matter if
they're from China, Turkey or any
other country. And I'm sure most people
would be even happier if the European community came
with solutions better than those from China or
any other country. Goran Stojak lives with his
family in Bukinje district, not far from the
power plant. Right behind his house
is an old ash dump. There used to be 500
residents here. Now there are
only 100. His are the
only children. He'd like to see Bosnia phase
out coal power more quickly. Our problem is that we're
surrounded by waste disposal dumps. We live between two coal ash
dumps and a thermal power plant. We're hoping for change
in the government, so that the west can
have some influence. Clearly, at the moment,
the government is only acting in its
own interests — and doesn't care about
the people here. The rail corridor that
begins at the Greek port of Piraeus and travels
via Belgrade is meant to end one
day in Budapest. It'll become the
delivery route for many Chinese goods
coming to the EU. Hungary's close ties with
China go back decades. We've come to meet
Gergely Salát, an expert on China
and its policies. He's taking us through
Budapest's Chinatown. From here, Chinese goods go on
to be distributed around Europe. It all started in 1989 when we
were still a socialist country. And for some reason,
Hungary and China reached an agreement about not requiring
visas from each other. But in 1989, after the
Tiananmen Square massacre, it was actually not the
political refugees, but many small
businessmen who left the country and they
looked at the map. They were looking for a country
they could reach easily and they found out that Hungary
didn't require a visa. So about 50 thousand
Chinese small businessmen came to Hungary
very suddenly. Of these 50-thousand, around
30-thousand remain today. Since Hungary became the first
eastern European country to officially sign up to the New
Silk Road initiative in 2011, their numbers have
grown further. But
traditionally, the Chinese population here
keeps itself to itself. Zhen Zhi's family story
is a typical one. Thirty years ago his parents
came to Hungary on business, but he grew up
back in China. Ten years ago, he came
to here himself to work. My parents don't
live here anymore, but some of my other
relatives do. When I left school and
was looking for a job, I realized that opportunities
outside China were a lot better. Some of my relatives were
already in Hungary and so I came here
to help them. Zhen Zhi feels
at home here. The Hungarians have been
very open toward him, also an important
factor. And business
is good — as a member of the
EU, Hungary offers easy access to the
rest of Europe. How much of that business might
involve illegal dealings, no one knows
for certain. I believe the fact
that the government is quite friendly to the
Chinese immigrants, this whole policy toward
China and Chinese people in Hungary reflects
Orban's desire to have much closer
relations with China. And that's why it's
strange that the Hungarian government is quite
unfriendly to immigrants. But in Hungarian
public discourse, Chinese people living here
do not count as immigrants. Indeed, Viktor Orbán
rarely passes up an opportunity to publicly
woo his Chinese partners. It’s no accident that also
sends a message to the EU — Hungary has its sights
set on the East. To develop this
region we need external technologies
and financial help. European money alone
is no longer enough. So we welcome as a sign
of the new world order, that China is looking to this
region as a place to get involved. Under this 'new world
order' Hungary has decided to profit from
China as much as it can. And that despite the
fact that most of the money flowing into the
country comes from the EU. Gergely Salát works
for Hungary’s Institute for Foreign
Affairs and Trade, which also produces analyses
for the foreign ministry. I dont think it's just the
Hungarian government... the Hungarian government
is maybe the loudest. I think the whole of
Central and Eastern Europe turned towards China
about ten years ago. And we became too
dependent on the West. And I think in
turning to the East, these countries are trying to
get some more room to maneuver. They are trying to decrease their
over-dependency on the West. The railway line that the
Chinese engineers are already working on in Belgrade
will one day end in Budapest. Though the project
is much vaunted by the Hungarian
government — construction still
hasn't begun. Bernadett Szél has
been a member of the Hungarian
parliament since 2012. She's a vocal critic of Prime
Minister Orbán and his government. Her chief concern is the
rule of law in her country, and the increasing pivot
towards an autocratic China. It's very clear that we want
to live in a liberal model, a liberal democracy
here in Hungary. Orbán
doesn't. He wants to go the
illiberal way. And from what I see, the
Chinese do not really see or they don't really ask
any questions about liberal democracy values
or they do not have any expectations about the
democratic values. Our European ties
do have that. The EU commission has sharply
criticized the rail project, not least because it
initially lacked the public tender required
under EU rules. Hungary finally addressed
concerns by giving the project to a joint
Hungarian-Chinese venture. Work on the route is estimated
to cost 1.8 billion euros — 85 percent is
loans from China. A flagship of our
joint projects is the modernization of the
Belgrade-Budapest railway line, which is going to be of
strategic importance for transportation on
the new Silk Road. The Hungarian nation doesn't
need this investment. We don't need the railway from
Budapest to Belgrade at all. We would need this money
for the already-existing Hungarian railway system because
it's in a very bad shape. Now the situation
is even worse — we are worse off with
this investment. The Chinese loan is
pretty big Hungary, and we'll never finish
and paying it back. Not far from
central Budapest, Ferencváros will eventually
be the final station on the Belgrade-Budapest
line. It's the only New Silk Road
project that China and Hungary are currently
working on. All the money that
Hungary's been hoping to see from China hasn't
begun flowing yet. Could the Chinese be losing interest
in central and eastern Europe? Most of the governments in
this region believe that the Chinese are coming with
bags full of money and they will invest here and
they will build the roads and railways and everything
that we want. This has not
happened. And many countries have grown
disappointed in China, but Hungary still sticks to
the idea that we'll try to get as much assistance
from China as possible. I would advise them to
be more realistic and realize that even though the
Chinese are very good at making you feel you're a
very special partner, they won't necessarily play
a very significant role in Hungary's economy in
the foreseeable future. The Belgrade-Budapest route is
planned for completion in 2025. It would be the fulfilment
of China’s dream — the first Chinese-built railway line
to finally reach the European Union.
Kis dokumentumfilm a Budapest-Belgrád vasútvonalról. Kis hazánk 32:22-nél jön képbe, de érdemes végignézni az elejétől, nagyon tanulságos. Tulajdonképpen semmi, amit eddig nem tudott (vagy sejtett) volna az, aki valamennyire már képben volt a dologgal, de azért így látni kicsit más.
(A sorozat első része a kínai kikötőbizniszekről szól Európában, itt látható.)
mávval lemegyek shenzenbe, és akkor már nem is kell aliexpress...
/s